23/11/2017 Newsnight

Your house is

deliberately burnt down.

You see your children killed.

You run to safety in

a neighbouring country.

Could you be tempted to return

to your original home?

It's the dilemma that may soon

face Rohingya Muslims.

They've experienced terror

in Myanmar, fled to Banlagadesh

but now may even be sent back.

We'll ask if a new plan to return

the Rohingya to Myanmar is the right

answer for a people who've

endured extraordinary suffering.

Also tonight...

It's the day after the Budget.

Our specialist team will take

us through the bits

they missed yesterday.

Does anyone really believe animals

don't have feelings?

Come on, really?

Well, it's been a raging

controversy online this week.

MPs accused of saying animals

are not sentient beings.

Are they guilty or is it simply

a sign of social media hysteria?

And...

Hello, Liverpool!

Liverpool was European City

of Culture back in 2008.

Now the European Commission says

no British cities need

apply in the future.

That's Brexit, they say.

Should we be surprised?

Hello.

Ten days ago we presented

you with a shocking

report from Bangladesh

on the Rohingya Muslims who had fled

from neighbouring Myanmar.

The Rohingya refugee crisis has been

described as a textbook case

of ethnic cleansing.

Pushed out of their own country,

the testimony from the refugees

was truly harrowing.

Well, as I say, we brought that

to you on Monday last week.

But there was a remarkable

development on the story today.

Bangladesh has signed a deal

with Myanmar to return hundreds

of thousands of Rohingya Muslims

who fled a recent army crackdown.

It's expected that displaced

people could begin to

return within two months.

Well, that's the theory, anyway.

But given what we've heard

about what the Rohingya

were escaping from, is it really

possible to think of people

returning to Myanmar -

a country that had stripped them

of citizenship back in the 1980s?

Ethnic de-cleansing?

Is this a way forward?

Bangladesh and Myanmar say

they are working on the details,

but this will matter for hundreds

of thousands of people.

James Clayton worked

with Gabriel Gatehouse on the last

film and now reports

on this new plan.

This footage almost don't real, the

size of the refugee camp is

bewilder, it is streets and terraced

shack, there are close to a million

people here, it is not camp, it is a

city.

Last week Newsnight aired a film

showing the unimaginable levels of

violence inflicted on the Rohingya.

Months after the attacks they were

still crossing the border.

And yesterday, US Secretary of State

Rex Tillerson said he believed what

happened was indeed ethnic

cleansing.

While we were in Bangladesh one

woman caught of our eye, sitting on

the side of the road she was looking

out across the water to Myanmar at

her former village. You can see your

village? Do you think you will be

able to go back some day?

With international pressure on

Myanmar to act, and internal

pressure on the Bangladesh

Government to reduce the size of the

camp, the two sides came to an

agreement today, to repatriate

refugees.

An agreement made by two countries

and not the Rohingya.

The situation in Myanmar is

horrendous, sending the Rohingya

back to the state is not acceptable.

Their homes have been burned to the

ground, many people have been

murdered and killed, in the last few

months, we have seen sexual violence

and rape on a massive scale. The

idea you would send people back to

that is very very shocking.

The UN hasn't been able to

independently investigate alleged

astrosties in Myanmar, even if it

could it seems unlikely many

Rohingya would wanted want to return

as it stands, they are denied basic

human rights, they are not even

officially citizens of the country.

This is a refugee we worked with in

the cams, he told me what he thought

of the deal.

What I need is not going to Myanmar

and going to Bangladesh again and

again, all I need to be granted is

my citizenship and national right.

What is clear from the Myanmar

Government is that will be unlikely,

this is Aung San Suu Kyi a month

after the initial attacks.

We are

conxxxx concerned to hear that

numbers of Muslims are fleeing

across the border to Bangladesh. We

want to find out why this exodus is

happening.

A leader suggesting she is unaware

of atrocities going on in her own

country will make many think justice

is a long way away. This woman's

parents and child were murdered by

the Burmese military.

Do you think you will ever go back

home?

The refugee camp in Bangladesh is

becoming more and more like a

permanent conurbation what isn't

clear is whether the Bangladesh

Government will force the Rohingya

back in to Myanmar, or if anyone

will ever want to go back freely.

Some of that footage involving

Gabriel Gatehouse. 36

36

Joining me now is Labour

MP Rosena Allin-Khan,

who has worked as a doctor

in a Rohingya refugee camp

as recently as last weekend.

And from the Asia Programme

at Chatham House, Champa Patel.

Good evening. Did you, while you

were there, did you talk to them

about what they, their hopings and

fears were of going back?

Absolutely. I witnessed fist hand

intolerable suffering, I met people

in the clinics who had fled many of

them had lost three or four children

and had to make the choice between

leaving their children burning in

fire, or grabbing the ones that were

still alive and running to make it

over the border. These people are

fearful. These people have lived

through intolerable cruelty and the

fought of sending them back to meet

with their death is unacceptable.

You think think sending them back

would be to confront with more of

the same of what they have just

fled.

Absolutely, we need to ask

ourself what is drives people to

flee, I met people who saw all of

the men folk in their village

dismembered, murdered. Women dragged

by their hair Anne and gang raped

and children thrown on to burning

fire, including baby, how will these

people feel there is trust to go

back, I believe ta if they were to

go back now, if there was to be a

forced repatriation that would be

meeting their death.

Right. What is

going on, this deal, what is Myanmar

true Iing to do, having ethnically

cleansed these people out, are they

prepending -- pretending to say they

are willing to take them back?

The

Rohingya have the right to return,

but it has to be safe, it has to be

voluntary, dignified and

sustainable. And what was announced

today doesn't really answer any of

those preconditions you would wanted

to see, so I think it is really

difficult not to see this other than

as short-term political

considerations, Myanmar is facing

international criticism and wants to

be seen to be doing something, I

think what has been overlooked a bit

is this is an agreement between the

civilian Government in Myanmar and

Bangladesh, so where is the military

in all of this?

You wouldn't trust,

basically, if Myanmar said, we will

give them the dignity when they

return, you wouldn't trust them,

because they didn't give it to them

when they were there?

The

Commander-in-Chief said last week

the Rohingya, he referred to them as

Bengali. So it doesn't instil

confidence it is safe for people to

return back there, because it is the

military who orchestrated the scale

of the violence against them.

This

is the paradox. What is the

alternative? You can see if they

don't go back, the camp, your there,

they are going to get more

permanent. It is not a is solution.

It is not sustainable. I mean

Bangladesh have been amazing in

opening the borders and their hearts

in accepting the Rohingya into their

land, but they are absolutely

overwhelmed. They already have a

fragile economy, 22% of Bangladeshis

live below the poverty line, they

can't manage. In my opinion a number

of things need to happen. There

needs to be an independent

fact-finding mission taking place in

Myanmar, it has to be open,

transparent, for people to see what

is going on and the perpetrators of

the crimes need to be taken to

trial. Secondly, the Bangladeshi

Government need to be supported in

their endeavours to care for the...

Which is money basically.

But also

access for NGOs. I was out there

with Christian Aid who are doing

great work. There are issues.

If I

may add to that. What was striking

about today nobody talked about the

root causes of this crisis. The

statelessness of the Rohingya. It is

striking to announce a deal and not

talk about long-term solution, how

do you provide legal pathways to

citizenship, this will happen again

and again:

Is there not a principle,

the rest of the world says they

can't go back, you have rewarded the

ethnic cleansing haven't you because

you have said yes, now your people

are the ones who occupy the land

they used to have.

I agree. It is

clear who the people are that are

responsible for this, they are named

individuals and there has to be

accountability for what happens,

that has to be sit in a broader

programme of reform that recognises

that the Rohingya are part of

Myanmar, that they can't just be

shunted off somewhere else and

discarded, and they have a vital

role to play in the life of that

country.

So how do you invest in them?

Bosnia

how many people were able to go back

to the lace... Does it work.

The

thing to remember is in Bosnia it is

not the people lacked citizenship.

It is key, the Rohingya in that

respect, are more comparable to the

Palestinian, so I think that

important lessons to be learned,

that these problems don't go way, it

afters many countries in the region.

I am struck about why there isn't...

This is genocide, textbook example

of genocide. We are bystanders to

the genocide and we cannot allow

this to continue, this is not ethnic

cleansing, this has been dehewn

anisation, over an entire group of

people. If they go back, if they are

forcibly reat the rated they will go

back, they will die and this will

continue. Thank you both very much.

It's been around 36 hours

since yesterday's Budget,

but in the past we've seen plenty

of them collapse completely

in that kind of time-frame.

Remember George Osborne's

omnishambles Budget in 2012?

And Philip Hammond's u-turn

over National Insurance

contributions earlier this year?

Well, let's get the day

after reflections from

our trio of editors -

Nick Watt, Helen Thomas

and Chris Cook.

The three wise men and women

who come bearing graphs.

Good evening.

Do we think he got

away with that? Just about. So far?

They seem quite pleased with the

response, they felt they got away

with that?

Want to worry this

afternoon said that Parliament felt

like the Mary Celeste, there was

nothing for them to do so they went

back to the constituencies, there

was no feeling of plotting. This

Budget landed as well as it could,

given that dramatic downgrade in the

economic forecast. Relations between

Number 10 a number 11 have been

difficult but from Number 10 I am

hearing words like they are pleased

with this, if ordered landed well

and that it was transparent about

the real challenges from that

downgrade that Helen will be talking

about. The Prime Minister was on a

visit with Philip Hammond earlier

today and it looks pretty much like

he has got a reprieve. She was asked

a simple question, is his job is

safe? Yes, he did a good job in the

Budget!

All peace and harmony, let

us talk about the economics. What is

the headline of the day?

Yesterday

we had these big downgrades,

productivity growth, economic growth

and the knock-on effect on borrowing

and today the focus was on what that

means in people's pockets. Look at

this chart from the Institute for

Fiscal Studies and this was the talk

of the day, average annual earnings,

adjusted for inflation, this blue

line, you can see the peak before

the financial crisis, the big drop

and partial recovery. In March 2016,

on this next line, the official

forecasts, nice, steady recovery. By

2021 we are back more or less. We

have caught up, yes. The latest

forecasts... The Green line. Very

different picture, flat out, modest

recovery.

Has anybody extrapolated

that line to see when it gets back

to where we were?

The two things are

the gaps, 2021, the gap is about

£1400. That has been forecast. And

2023, we are nowhere near back to

that peak so that is already 15

years of lost earnings growth and

this is buying power, living

standards. This is what really

matters to people.

A lot of people

have said that this is all Brexit?

This is not Brexit and it is

important to say that. Actually,

what is baked into these forecasts

about Brexit is quite smooth

because...

They have to make a bunch

of assumptions.

The other thing to

say is these are forecasts and

economists do occasionally get the

numbers wrong.

Maybe the fact that

they have told us to carry an

umbrella, the sun will shine...

The

fact that this is baked into the

official forecasts just reflects

that the productivity, earnings,

living standards, this is a

long-term problem and a real

challenge.

Chris, you were speaking

to us yesterday about the NHS and

its difficulties, what are the

options to make life within the

Budget they have got?

The NHS in

England is not like other government

departments, it has its own Chief

Executive and board that are not the

government, they are independent and

they have this big thing every year,

the NHS mandate, a list of targets,

and are going to decide next week

that they cannot meet their targets

and do what they are paid to. One

example... One of the targets is the

RTD target, which says that from a

referral to getting to treatment, it

should be no longer than 18 weeks

and they think this will cost 2- £3

billion.

We are missing that target.

£2 billion to get back in? To bring

the backlog back down and then half

a billion every year to keep that

under control. They only have £1.6

billion extra next year so they

cannot do that one target, let alone

all of them. Next week will be all

about which targets we meet in which

we do not, they will not say

something like, we will no longer do

hips or cancer treatment, this is

the differing of spending and it is

going to say, your quality of care

will decline but the speed will

decline, that is the conversation.

Looking ahead, presumably the

government think we have managed to

stabilise a patient that is this

government, it is OK, I'll be

hoping...

It has been Theresa May's

horrible year, the Budget and the

general election backfiring and

conference speech and this is the

big thing that is so far going well.

Is this a turning point? She has two

big challenges, as Chris said, she

has to not have a winter fuel crisis

and candles Brexit negotiations move

onto the next stage, future trade

transition, the Prime Minister has

seen -- is singing Donald Tusk

tomorrow and that is the beginning

of a process over the next ten days

with the UK will outline the extra

money it is putting on the table.

Will be Irish Prime Minister dig in

and if so, and the EU still listens,

maybe he could hold up progress.

Plenty of action. Thank you all very

much indeed.

A right old fuss has been brewing

over the last few days

on the subject of animal welfare.

And as with any story

concerning animals, it has

attracted enormous interest,

particularly on social media

and in some online forums.

Now, we all love animals,

but the question about

the controversy over the last few

days is whether it is all

based on a falsehood.

Fake news.

MPs debating the Brexit Bill didn't

vote to carry an EU treaty

provision recognising animals

as sentient beings.

Does it tell us anything

about MPs or animals,

or about the tendency in this age

towards fevered and

uninformed argument?

Here's the headline

that captures the row.

Here's another.

MPs voted that animals

cannot feel pain.

Items like these have

quite reasonably been

shared millions of times.

Because most of us -

sentient human beings -

have seen a pet dog and can testify

that, yes, animals do feel pain, do

have strong feelings of attachment

and are capable of emotions.

They have simple tastes

and are easily fulfilled

by simple activities,

such as retrieving a ball.

Dogs are clearly sentient beings.

Cats less so.

But even they have emotions,

apparently, and are just less keen

to express them publicly.

So what were MPs thinking in voting

that animals can't feel pain?

Well, it turns out that they didn't.

They, too, have feelings and mostly

appear to believe animals

are sentient beings.

They simply voted against

registering animal sentience

in the Brexit Bill, lifting it

from the EU Lisbon Treaty.

No need, said the Government.

It's already effectively

covered here.

I can reassure the Honourable Lady

that it is already recognised

as a matter of domestic law here,

primarily in the Animal

Welfare Act 2006.

If an animal is capable

of experiencing pain and suffering,

it is sentient and under

the Animal Welfare Act

it is therefore afforded protection.

So the argument was not

about animal sentience at all -

it was a legal row about how

to enshrine it.

That is still an open question.

But protests against the Tories have

taken off, as though MPs have voted

to slaughter puppies.

Sue Perkins had a go

at it on Twitter.

"MPs denying what is

obvious", she said.

"Resist".

Ben Fogle did, too.

He has now apologised.

But if you did fall for the wrong

idea that MPs thought

animals didn't feel pain,

well, you would be angry.

Well, Tory MPs are terrified of that

anger, and Michael Gove,

who is responsible for this area,

clarified again today in a written

answer that the "Government

will ensure animal sentience

is recognised after

we leave the EU".

But he said the "Brexit Withdrawal

Bill is not the right

place to address this".

Well, I'm joined by Sue

Hayman from Cumbria.

She is Labour's Michael Gove -

Shadow Defra Secretary.

Robert Courts is a Conservative

MP and represents the

constituency of Witney.

Have you had a public response?

Lots

of the Neales, clearly something

people care about.

Do you feel it is

based on a falsehood, that you have

been unfairly maligned?

I would not

say falsehood but there is

misunderstanding. You are right in

the beginning of that piece, this is

a drafting issue and if you read the

text of article 13 and the new

clause 30, it becomes clear the

context is around European

legislation and it simply will not

work if we left that...

Why not?

What is the legal problem about

taking this thing from Article 13

that recognises animals are

sentience, and putting it into UK

law so we have a provision that says

animals are sentience?

Because the

context is about being an EU member

state, it doesn't make sense if you

are not in the EU. Of course,

animals are sentience, there is no

doubt.

Do any of your colleagues not

believe that?

No MP believes that,

they clearly feel pain, what is

behind this, the intention of making

clear that animals can suffer, we

should have a protection but this is

not the right way to do it.

We can

draft it ourselves. Have you brought

this on yourselves by killing

badgers and supporting hunting or a

free vote on hunting, which raises

the possibility of hunting

returning?

I don't think so, this is

just a misunderstanding on a

drafting error.

But killing badgers

is real, that is not a drafting

error?

Sure, but this is a

government... That is your policy?

For scientific reasons. Scientists

did not think it was a great idea

and you went ahead anyway.

This

government has done more for animal

welfare than any government for a

very long time, banning ivory and

increasing the sentences for animal

cruelty, mandatory CCTV in slaughter

houses. It has been years since any

government has done as much.

But in

the manifesto, when there was a

provision for a free vote on

hunting, a lot of people, not a huge

mainstream media issue, but a lot of

social media was very exercised by

that provision and you did notice

that?

Of course, British people care

very much about animals and that is

another issue that was controversial

but that should not take away from

our excellent record, nor does it

have anything to do with this

clause...

Steve Hayman, can we just

agree... That no MP has been exposed

as not believing that animals are

sentient beings? That there is any

suggestion that Tory MPs do not

believe animals feel pain, that is

pure nonsense?

Everyone would accept

that animals suffer and feel pain

but the point is, Michael Gove has

said we do not need to bring this

legislation into UK law because of

the animal welfare act which covers

at what what the animal welfare act

does not say is that animals are

sentient, which is why we need to

bring this into UK law.

I just want

to be 100% clear, that you are

condemning all the suggestions on

social media that have portrayed

Tory MPs as having voted that

animals do not feel pain? A lot of

that has been said and you think

that is nonsense, Robert Courts

believes no MP believes that and you

except that?

I think we all know

that.

A lot of this debate has been

based on a misunderstanding. Sue

Perkins, that tweet was based on a

misunderstanding. Haven't you been

using that misunderstanding?

I think

if animals feel suffering, if

Conservative MPs appreciate that

then they should have supported our

amendment and should have brought

article 13 into UK law.

Hang on, in

the Commons they explained perfectly

clearly that it was not a matter of

other animals are sentient or not,

on the 18th of October it was said

in the Commons, we are exploring how

the animal sentience principle of

article 13 can be reflected in the

UK. Oliver Letwin said we need to

talk about new clauses, what they

are aiming at and how best to

achieve it because it is a

disagreement about, not one of end

spot means. Yet this debate has

taken off as though it is about

animal pain?

Most of the appeal bill

is to bring existing EU legislation

into UK law and there are only a

small number of things that have

been taken out by the government,

animal sentience is one of them and

other environmental protections. The

question is, why remove it when you

can bring it in and have this in law

without having to go through the

rigmarole of creating new

legislation? That means we have to

trust the government to do that

whereas if they just bring it

straight back, that is the problem

solved.

Do you except Michael Gove's

pledge, in written answers today he

said we will sort this out because

it is not our intention to treat

animals as non-sentient beings. Do

you accept this will be enshrined in

UK law in some form or other but not

the Brexit Bill?

What concerns me is

Michael Gove has said a lot about

animal welfare and the environment

yet the two areas where the

important legislation that underpins

the principles underpinning animal

welfare and the environment in the

Brexit Bill have been removed from

the legislation. I think we should

be judged on what we do, not just

what we say.

Shouldn't the principle

be judged on what it does? The

animal sentience principle is

written into the treaty yet there is

foie gras in France and

bull-fighting in Spain, our welfare

standards are much higher!

But this

underpins the ability to build on

animal welfare, the RSPCA and the

British veterinary Association are

very concerned that article 13 has

been removed and the RSPCA basically

says there are areas of animal

welfare improvement that they do not

believe would have happened if it

was not for article 13. For example,

the banning of the battery cages,

the banning of animal testing in

cosmetics, banning importing

products. They see this as an

important part of legislation.

If Donald Trump let it run round

social media for his end, you would

be the first to be decrying fake

news anon sense, wouldn't you? Yet

when it is on your side you are

happy to use this misunderstanding

of whether the Tories have voted

against animals or voted against the

particular legislative proposal,

willing to use that, to get your

particular view of how the

legislation should be seen.

I

haven't misused anything.

All I have

said is it is important the

Government supports our amendment

and brings article 13 into UK law.

It a critical part of our

legislation.

Thank you very much indeed. Thank

you both.

Thank you both.

You might have heard of Fancy Bear -

a Russian hacking group with a long

history of cyber-espionage.

Experts say it was involved

in the attack on the theft

of Democratic Party emails

in the run-up to the US

election last year.

Also in the release of information

about Bradley Wiggins'

therapeutic use exemptions.

It is hard to find out much

about these hacking groups -

they don't self-publicise.

But with the PM programme on Radio

4, we've obtained exclusive insight

into some of the operations of Fancy

Bear.

Our story begins not

in Moscow or Washington,

but somewhere much closer to home.

Chris Vallance reports.

When you think of international

computer espionage,

what locations spring to mind?

Moscow?

Washington?

London?

What about a terraced street?

A corner shop in Oldham?

It's the kind of place

you might pop in for some

cigarettes or a pint of milk.

More Coronation Street

than le Carre.

Yet this place, through no fault

of its own, has a connection

to international cyber espionage.

In 2012, an unlikely set

of characters visited an online

business registered to this area.

They weren't customers

after groceries, they were

international hackers,

linked to Russian intelligence.

They were visiting a business

called Crookservers.

The hackers were from a group

called Fancy Bear, whose

targets include government,

military and security organisations.

They would visit Crookservers'

website to rent computers

used in their attacks.

Experts say Fancy Bear's aim

was to change the way we think.

There are a lot of Russian

cyber groups that engage

in traditional espionage,

so the theft of political

and military information.

What makes this Russian group

particularly notable is they also

appear to participate

in what we call active measures,

which is the Russian notion

of using cyber and other means

to influence popular

opinion in the advancement

of their strategic interests.

Crookservers was a purely

virtual business that

rented out, well, servers.

It was all online, it never

physically owned the machines.

In early 2012, it briefly claimed

to be based at the newsagents

in its website registration

documents, but no-one at the corner

shop had ever heard of it.

Where Crookservers was physically

based is a tricky question.

The online business could have been

run from a laptop, but however small

it was it was popular with Fancy

Bear.

This Russian hacking group clearly

liked using that service provider

because they had gone back

on a number of occasions

to hire new servers,

and lease new computers,

so I think it shows

that was a service provider

they were keen to use and they felt

safe using them, which is

interesting in itself, I think.

One of the computers leased

from Crookservers under

the pseudonym Nikolay Mladenov

features in computer

code used to attack

the German Parliament in 2015.

Claudia Haydt was the first person

to notice the attack

on the Bundestag.

They sent out an e-mail

which supposedly was sent by a UN,

United Nations organisation,

and this e-mail had an attachment

with reports of the situation

in Ukraine, or supposedly it had

an attachment like this.

I tried to open it.

I found out it didn't work

and I forgot about it,

only later remembered

there is this problem.

Of course I thought it was rather

serious if a computer

in the Bundestag might be victim

of an attack by some Trojan virus.

Then the news comes out

that this is a Russian

linked group, Fancy Bear.

When that news broke,

what did you think?

Well, yes, it could be Russian,

it could be someone else.

Yes, there are a lot of clues

which are pointing to Russia,

because a lot of the software used

in the hack was already used

by other confirmed Russian attacks,

for example in US, and actually

we still don't know what kind

of documents had been downloaded

or uploaded in this case,

to somewhere else.

We don't know what happened

to really sensitive papers.

Crookservers closed

in October 10th of this year.

Internet records its last business

address was in Pakistan.

But we have traced the company back

to an individual whose social media

profiles show lived in the Oldham

area until around about 2014.

His name is Usman Ashraf.

Ashraf, who is now based

in Pakistan, only communicated

with us via e-mail, but he did

provide detailed

answers to questions.

He said he didn't know his

customers were hackers.

He provided evidence that

when in 2015 he was first alerted

to the use of Crookservers

by Fancy Bear he swiftly

kicked them out.

Lawyers say what he was doing wasn't

necessarily illegal.

And Ashraf's answers

to our questions helped expose a web

of financial transactions,

fake identities and cyber attacks

linked to the hackers.

Mike McLellan says that what we have

learned allows experts

to connect together several

different hacking operations.

The information that has been

received appears to suggest a link

between the attack against the US

Democratic Party in 2016,

with operations against a Polish

defence company, against a Bulgarian

agency for national security,

against the participants

of the 2014 Farnborough airshow

and against the Nigerian Government.

What may have attracted

the hackers to Crookservers,

apart from its name,

was it accepted payment

using a number of hard to trace

methods, including bitcoin.

We were able to identify that

payment to Crookservers came

from a specific bitcoin wallet.

That bitcoin wallet had

received over 200 bitcoins

round $100,000 at the time.

That wallet in turn received funds

from BTCE, a place where you can

exchange bitcoins for cash,

which Tom says was popular

with Russian computer criminals,

until it was shut down

by US investigators.

The indictment mentioned that over

$4 billion worth of bitcoin

were laundered through BTCE.

Much of it transferred

into Russian roubles.

I understand there are other clues

to be found in financial information

from Crookservers that hint

as Russian connections.

We have seen no evidence BTCE knew

it was being used to fund hackers.

We have also seen no evidence

that the shop in Oldham had any

actual connection to Crookservers,

although through Ashraf

there is a clear link to the area.

So in the end what have we learned?

We have obtained a unique

window into a Russian

linked hacking operation,

a window that has enabled us to join

together a number of different

campaigns identified

by the security industry.

We have seen the hackers were well

organised and they were well funded.

And the financial information

points, once again,

in the direction of Russia.

It is a hacking campaign

that has no lesser aim

than to influence word events.

It's a hacking campaign that

continues to this day.

On Monday, news came that two big EU

regulatory agencies in London

are being moved offshore

to Paris and Amsterdam.

A disappointment to London.

But it was interesting, of course,

that Britain's allocated EU

institutions were both in London

in the first place.

But today, disappointing Brexit news

came for five other cities -

they'd been competing to be

European City of Culture 2023.

The EU Commission said

they are ineligible because we will

no longer be a member state.

Were we stupid to think

we might be part of the City

of Culture game once we leave?

Or is the Commission

being unreasonable?

I'm with Rosie Millard,

who is Chair of Hull -

the UK City of Culture 2017.

She is also on the selection panel

for the European City of Culture.

I presume it was.

You mean capital

of dull culture.

Because it has gone

now. You were going to choose one of

the five cities.

Look at the care

that has gone into it. Our place,

that was Belfast.

I am puzzle as to

how it got this far, we voted to

leave some time ago, how could it

have got this far would us

realising?

It must have been on

their Risk Register, they must have

had this anxiety this could happen,

but never believe it would happen

because there is precedent, you

know, cities of one Culture, Media

and Sport, from countries which are

not in the EU, like Norway, Capital

of Culture, there is even I think it

is Prague, yes, was the Capital of

Culture before the Czech Republic

was in the EU, so there is

precedent.

And down with 23

They put

a lot of money into the bid.

It is

preallocated as Britain's year.

And

I may say that Britain was the

country that really brought the

Capital of Culture into being,

because before Glasgow won it in

1990, the Capital of Culture went to

places like Florence and Paris,

which didn't need it. Glasgow got it

in 1990 and the city was

transformed. It rebranded it. It, I

think you can draw a direct line to

hosting the Commonwealth Game,

equally Liverpool, you know, brought

an astonishing amount of wealth and

tourism. What happened was after

Glasgow it weventry year to a city

that really needed it. So we made it

the success story.

What I want to

know, were we stupid to think, we

are leaving, if you leave you don't

get to play in the game, do you, are

the Commission being unreasonable in

interpreting the rules?

I think this

is EU Commission throwing its toys

out a big European shaped cot. They

didn't need to do that. This is one

of the joys, it is is a joyous

thing, in Hull people are walking

round, it is joyous, the Hull

phenomenon is not the EU, it is the

UK but it is the same idea, and you

know, the creative industries

federation where I work, we have

done a lot of scoping on what will

happen to the creative industries if

there is a hard Brexit, if Brexit

happens an it will hit the creative

industries very very hard, because

here a lot of creative British

people live and work in the EU.

We

interpret it as very hard.

There is

a lot of flexibility, freedom of

movement is needed. It is not

special pleading, this is is a big,

important factor in the UK economy

and jobs.

Which one was going to win out of

the five?

I couldn't say, they were

all marvellous. No, you know, I

might...

You might as well award it

It might come back in some form and

what might happen is that the

collegiate community effort that has

gone into this might stick round.

There might be good results.

Something good might come out of it.

It is good stuff.

The Sun has Harry popped the

question? Bookies suspend engagement

bet, there is a question mark, they

can't say he has but they are

thinking it. The Mail, on the bottom

right hand corner, what do they

know? The bookies stopped taking

bet, are we poised for something

there. That is almost it.

But before we go, it's now been five

years since British war photographer

John Cantlie was kidnapped in Syria

alongside American

journalist James Foley.

Cantlie is one of more than 20

journalists still believed to be

held captive by so-called Islamic

State.

His current whereabouts

are not known.

To mark this anniversary,

we leave you with a montage

of photos he took in Libya,

Afghanistan and Syria.

Goodnight.