03/05/2017 Outside Source

Hello, I'm Nuala McGovern, this is Outside Source.

The two contenders for the French presidency are going head-to-head

20 million viewers are expected to tune in as centrist candidate

Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen try to convince

undecided voters why they should be the next French President.

The debate being seen as the climax of a long and bitter campaign.

The final run-off takes place this Sunday.

As the UK gears up for its own election, the gloves

Threats against Britain have been issued by European

All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect

the result of the general election that will take place on June eighth.

The FBI Director has defended his decision to make public

the re-opening of an investigation into Hillary Clinton's

emails less than two weeks before the US election.

Everybody who disagrees with me has to come back to October 28th with me

and stare at this and tell me what you would do.

Would you speak or would you conceal?

We'll talk to Anthony Zurcher in Washington about that and we'll

hear from Barbara Plett-Usher about the Palestinian President's

That's all coming up on Outside Source.

French presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron

have just begun a live televised debate ahead of Sunday's second

and final round of voting in the presidential election.

Let's take a look at what is happening. TRANSLATION: Ameen, they

are financed from abroad. You know all about that. Qatar and all these

countries. I remember that at the time you maintain tax exonerations

and exemptions for investment from these countries. And in your

governments, I believe that you granted some Republican decoration

to one of these people, you gave them a medal. We have to eradicate

the fundamentalist eye John G in our country, that is not something you

are able to do or are doing -- eradicate the fundamentalist

ideology. Your toy might hold you in its claws, it is really scary.

Marine Le Pen speaking. I'm joined by Agnes Poirier,

journalist and broadcaster. She has been watching this and will

be with us throughout the were. It looked pretty sparky as I was

watching it? The gloves are off. Basically, she started off very

well, but then on the economy, not her favourite topic, she kept

attacking a Emmanuel Macron, not explaining her manifesto or

anything. Micron scored a lot of points then. He actually looks a bit

condescending, a bit arrogant, because all she was doing was

attacking him. And then they went on to talk about social care and

national health insurance in France, the debate cooled off a bit. Now

they are debating terrorism, a topic she is much more comfortable in. We

will expect some more robust, but perhaps she will gain back some

credibility. The first part of the debate she was really not at her

best. Another hour and a half of this debate? It is very wrong. And I

have hardly seen the two moderators speak. That is what happens during

that debate, those journalists are not journalists, they are just there

to canned minutes in time allocations. Just need to make sure

that one does not talk more than the other. Those numbers that the

viewers will be seeing on-screen are the minutes allocated so far in the

hour, proceeding, basically, how much each candidate has spoken. Can

these debates really make a difference? I have heard 18% are

undecided. Of course. It is the last thing, the climax of the

second-round campaign. As you said, the abstention might be very, very

high this year at this election, so they need to go for the last voters,

basically, they need to attract them and convince them. It is a

pantomime, theatre. Even watching the body language, it was

incredible. Thank you, Agnes Poirier, you will be with us

throughout the other, watching it for us and bringing us up to speed

on the issues. Where do these two candidates stand

on some of the bigger issues On the EU, Emmanuel Macron

has said he supports Marine Le Pen wants out

and has said she will hold This is what a lot of people talk

about when they talk about these candidates.

On immigration, Emmanual Macron favours giving citizenship to those

Marine Le Pen says she wants to stop illegal immigration and cap overall

On France's sacred 35 hour work week, Emmanuel

on that but says any overtime pay will be exempt from tax.

I thought that was an interesting aspect of it.

Marine Le Pen simply says she will keep it.

One place being closely watched this election is the town of Troyes.

Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen were separated by less

Francois Fillon won the vote here, but with him out of the picture it

Here we are in the north-west of France in an area famous for it

champagne but also for textile industry. Famous brands like Lacoste

come from here. This is a conservative stronghold but Marine

Le Pen has come first in the first round in the whole of the region,

with the regional score of 30.3%, which gives you a bit of an idea

what may happen on Sunday. She clearly has a strong lead in this

region. How are people bad feeling about the debate on the run-off, the

second-round of the election? -- how are people there feeling? We were at

the local market and people were saying they have not decided what to

votes on Sunday, they will be waiting for the debate to decide.

Depending on the performance of either candidate. It is interesting

to note that 15 years ago when John Marine Le Pen -- John Marine Le Pen

was in the final against Jacques Chirac, Chirac refused to debate

with him because he said there is no debate to have with the far right.

It is the first time the far right candidate has participated in a

debates, a key moment in the debate in France. It will be interesting to

see how Emmanuel Macron, the outsider, the former banker,

pro-European candidates, will handle this debate tonight. It will be the

occasion for both candidates to voice their programme and try to

convince voters to turn out on Sunday, but of course we will see

what kind of performance they will be having. It is a bit of a gamble

for both candidates. Whether it will have an impact on the last-minute

decision of voters, we will know very soon. We will keep you across

that story throughout this hour. Thank you to Thomas Fessy.

Theresa May has launched an attack on Brussels -

shortly after she attended the dissolution of parliament before

Brexit negotiations are central to the UK election campaign

Whoever wins on the 8th of June will face one overriding task, to get the

best possible deal for this United best possible deal for this United

Kingdom from Brexit. And in the last few days, we have seen just how

tough these talks are likely to be. Britain's negotiating position in

Europe has been misrepresented in the continental press. The European

Commission 's gauche rating stands has hardened. Threats against

Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of

these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the

general election battle take place on the 8th of June.

Meanwhile the European Union's chief Brexit negotiator has been setting

out his priorities for the first phase of talks with

Speaking earlier today in Brussels, he said there were three

Our recommendation shows where we want to land when we conclude the

first phase of negotiations. Citizens rights, the financial

settlement and a new external border. I will pay great attention

to the situation in Ireland and I will be going to Ireland next week.

Curious what he will say that. After he set out the EU's main

priorities, Mr Barnier made it clear that the Brexit process will not be

easy. Some have created the illusion that

Brexit would have no material impact on our lives, all that negotiations

can be concluded quickly and painlessly. This is not the case.

One thing Mr Barnier didn't mention was the size

of the Brexit bill or, as he called it, the

The Financial Times reported this morning that the UK might have

This what the UK Brexit Secretary had to say about that.

The numbers that have been bandied around in the press, 50, 60, 100

million, we don't recognise and we had no indication of it. We have

said throughout that we will meet international obligations and enter

into the negotiation in the best interests of us and the European

Union. Earlier I spoke to Alex Forsyth

from our Westminster studio. This is quite an extraordinary

intervention by Theresa May. She accused some in Brussels of not

wanting the UK to get a good deal out of Brexit, she accused them of

trying to interfere with the outcome of the UK general election, so she

is ramping up the rhetoric. Part of that reason is because she thinks I

play well with some voters in the UK, those who backed Brexit might

want to see Theresa May take a tub stands going into the negotiations,

but it is a gamble because not everyone in the UK backed Brexit on

some might not like the tough talk. If Theresa May wins the general

election on June the 8th she will have to sit down and negotiate with

the EU, this kind of language and the kind of accusation she has made

may not play well with them. Say they are words that cannot be

unsaid, it is starting off on a very poisonous, some would say,

atmosphere to begin negotiations that Britain is looking to get a

good deal in? One Theresa May sent the letter which began the official

process of the UK leaving the EU, she did show -- did so in terms of

goodwill, talking about the special partnership and reaching out to EU

leaders. The hope was that negotiations would be done really

positively. In the last few days we have seen briefings from Brussels

against the Prime Minister after she met senior EU officials in Downing

Street, now Theresa May has said what she has said today, there are

plenty who say that once you say these things they will be there for

the duration. Some in the EU recognise that the little context in

the UK, there is an election going on which will be the first priority

for Theresa May. They said any suggestion that EU officials are

interfering is pure fantasy, but nonetheless it sets the tone for the

negotiations, which were already going to be very difficult.

Donald Trump welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

to the White House to talk Middle East peace.

We'll be live in Washington to find out what's been said

A 20-year old student has been found guilty of planting a home-made bomb

Damon Smith, who has Asperger's syndrome,

was caught on CCTV leaving a bag filled with explosives and ball

The device was discovered when the train driver

The train was evacuated just two minutes before Smith had set

The Metropolitan Police say it's not clear if he was motivated

by terrorism as there was not enough evidence that his crime

A fourth person has been arrested in connection with the death of

businessmen Guy Hedger. The 61-year-old was shot

during a burglary at his home near Ringwood in Hampshire

in the early hours of Sunday. Officers say three of the suspects,

who are all in their 40s, were arrested in the Bournemouth

area. Detectives are trying to establish

why the home of the former marketing This is Outside Source live

from the BBC newsroom. The two contenders for the French

presidency are going head-to-head in a live televised debate ahead

of Sunday's final round of voting. FBI director James Comey has been

testifying before a Senate subcommittee investigating alleged

Russian hacking of the US elections. The hearing comes a day

after Hillary Clinton spoke about what she believed the reasons

for her losing in November were. Let's bring up a little of what she

said. Mrs Clinton is referring

to the publication of James Comey's letter informing Congress the FBI

had reopened an investigation into her use of a private email

server just over a week Well, Mr Comey was asked

about this at today's hearing This was terrible. It makes me

mildly notion is to think we might have had impact on the election but,

honestly, it wouldn't change the decision. -- it makes me mildly

nauseous. Everyone who would challenge the decision has to tell

me what you would do, would you speak or conceal? I could be wrong,

but we honestly made a decision between those two choices that even

in hindsight, and this has been one of the world's most painful

experiences, I would make the decision, I would not conceal but

from Congress on October 28. Anthony Zurcher is in

Washington for us. What is the reaction been? You have

seen Hillary Clinton supporters feeling like you we go again with

James Colby defending his investigation, they feel it was

extremely influential on the outcome of the election, they blame him,

including Hillary Clinton has blamed him, for contributing to her defeat

so they will look at the testimony and say it is more of the same, he

should not have done anything as far as revealing the investigation right

before the election. Meanwhile you heard from Donald Trump last night,

tweeting about all this attention on James Colby and the investigation is

a Democratic way of explaining their defeat, to try to find some sort of

reason for their defeat rather than the fact that Donald Trump ran a

good campaign and they did not. You are seeing the same battles we heard

shortly after the election in November continuing to play out

months and months later. What might happen next, he is in front of this

subcommittee, will he look at further allegations of hacking

within the election? This is the justice committee in the Senate,

they have not primarily been tasked with investigating the hacking and

Russian influence, that is an ongoing investigation that the FBI

is conducting under James Comey. Where we will hear more about this

is in the Senate intelligence committee and the house intelligence

committee, they are calling testimony, including Comey, to talk

about possible Russian meddling. At some point we will find out what

happens with the ongoing FBI investigation, but there is no

indication it will wrap up any time soon. It will be hovering over the

Trump administration for the rest of the year, I think. You think so?

Clinton investigation went on for almost a full year, this one seems

even more involved. When James Comey testified a few months ago he said

the investigation was just in its early stages, but in fact it had

been started in the middle of last year. So if it is still in its early

stages of an investigation which started in July 2016, we can

expected to go on for some. Thank you.

The Russian president has welcomed the Turkish president to his summer

home in Sochi. He said reaching a political solution to the conflict

was a joint goal of Turkey and Russia. Other topics to be discussed

include Russian trade restrictions on tourism, the two leaders have

praised bilateral relations. It is important that we have managed to

seize the full bilateral trade, there was a small growth of

commodities in the first few months of this year, to around 3%.

TRANSLATION: In times like this when huge responsibility lies on our

shoulders, I am sure that the steps we take it together will change the

future for the whole region. One of my colleagues from BBC

Turkish joined me to talk about the significance of the meeting between

the two. This is the fifth meeting of these two leaders since August

2016, ever since Turkey's downing of the Russian jets in November 2015,

this is a very strong message of normalisation of bilateral relations

between two... We can say two neighbouring countries in the

region. The two leaders specifically underlined that relations are back

to normal and business as usual and even though they have significant

disagreements on Syria they have managed to have a couple of serious

deals in this meeting. We saw 22 billion dollars to be invested

within the nuclear power plant in Turkey by Russia, the other going to

try to revive tourism. Can you tell us a bit about that? Tourism and

trade art two significant elements in Turkish/ Russian relations,

especially in the southern parts of Turkey, they rely on Russian

tourists and Russian agricultural trade. The restrictions imposed by

the Putin administration had significant impact on these regions

and their economy. We saw that Russia agreed to withdraw all the

restrictions except on exports and to take the business back to normal.

Thanks to my colleague for that analysis. Let's move on to business.

It's been a big day for the ride-sharing

app Uber in its quest to develop driverless cars.

A court has ruled that Uber has not infringed intellectual property laws

after it hired an engineer who used to work for a rival firm.

Dave Lee is outside the court where the hearing has been taking place.

Dave, good to have you back, what has been happening? The hearing is

still going on, they kicked all the journalists out for a private

hearing happening right now, but this morning we got a glimpse of

precisely what this row is about. On the one hand you have a company

which spun out of Google's cell striving car division, accusing

Nowell of essentially stealing their technology, taking it away from

Google and creating their own self driving division. Uber dispute that,

saying it has not happened. Although they do not dispute that a former

employee took some files from his former employee, basic glove has not

use them for anything so it can't be guilty of stealing trade secrets and

infringing on patterns. We are waiting to hear today an injunction

will be applied to Uber which could seriously hamper efforts in

developing and researching this technology. So it is employees

moving from one company to the other? It centres on a man who is a

pioneer of self driving technology, he used to work for Google in their

self driving division, he left very suddenly in January 2016, set up a

new company called auto which was subsequently bought by Uber very

quickly, the accusation is that new company was simply a front for Uber

taking this employee from Google. Leaver say that is not what

happened, they say it is very usual for top talent to go from company to

company and there was no wrongdoing, but the former Google company think

they haven't Uber banked to rights. Thank you very much.

The US central bank has left its benchmark interest

Last week, the US economy surprised economists when the annualised rate

of growth fell by two thirds compared to the end of last year.

In a statement, the Federal Reserve said it views the slowing in growth

during the first quarter as likely to be transitory.

Let's get more on this with Samira Hussain in New York.

Let me bring you up. Tell us a little about what people are saying

about this? No one expected the Federal Reserve to raise interest

rates this time around, but there are a few things that people wanted

to see in the statement that we got from the Fed. They wanted to see the

reaction from the Federal Reserve about this really low growth

numbers. The US economy in the first few months of this year only grew by

0.7%, that is not very good. We see the Fed's interpretation that this

is a blip in the system. What the Fed has emphasised as some of the

good things happening in the US economy, namely the labour market,

that we are seeing strong climate numbers. The second thing that

people will look for is if we don't see a rate rise now and we're pretty

much expecting two rate rises from now until the end of the year, when

will we see the next one? The fact that the Federal Reserve is

downplaying the bad growth numbers and playing up the good, solid

numbers we are seeing from the labour market, it is possible we

could see a rate rise come as early as next June. We have 20 seconds,

any response about the Trump effect? I cannot answer that because I have

not seen anything like that, but I can't know for sure. Thank you very

much. No doubt soon people will begin to hear exactly what it is,

about what Mr Trump might begin to respond when we get some of those

figures. We will have to keep an eye on his Twitter feed. Another

half-hour to come.