05/12/2017 Outside Source

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Hello, I'm Ros Atkins,

this is Outside Source.

America is moving towards

recognising Jerusalem

as Israel's capital.

President Trump called regional

leaders today to say he'll move

the US embassy there.

That totally destroys any

chance he will play a role

as an honest broker.

Until now America's policy was that

Jerusalem's status should be

negotiated by the Israelis

and the Palestinians.

That's changing - we'll report

from Washington and Jerusalem.

We'll be live in Lausanne -

Russia's been banned

from the 2018 Winter Olympics

for state-sponsored doping.

These were the extraordinary

scenes in Ukraine.

That's the former Georgian president

Mikheil Saakashvili being detained.

But then...

Freed.

And we'll be live in

Westminster with the latest

on the stalled Brexit.

Welcome to Outside Source.

President Trump has announced

he intends to move the US embassy

in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

- he did so in a number of calls

to leaders in the region.

This is hugely significant -

it could be a step towards

recognising Jerusalem as Israel's

capital - no country has gone that

far since Israel's creation in 1948.

King Abdullah of Jordan told

Mr Trump this could have "dangerous

repercussions on the stability

and security of the region".

A spokesman for the

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

said he has urged Russia,

France and the Pope, "to intervene

to prevent it from happening."

Here's the reaction of Turkish

president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

TRANSLATION:

I would like to

reiterate my sadness over reports

the US is getting ready to recognise

Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Mr

Trump, Jerusalem is the red line for

Muslims. We will continue our fight

until the last minute. This can go

as far as cutting diplomatic ties

with Israel.

Israel sees Jerusalem

as its eternal, undivided capital

and it has long been a source of

frustration for Israeli leaders that

there is no recognition of its full

sovereignty over the city, but

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as

the capital of their future

independent state.

It has been the international

consensus for a long time now that

the status of the city should be

decided in a negotiated peace deal

between Israel and the Palestinians.

The east of Jerusalem of course was

captured by Israel in the 1967

Middle East war, later annexed in a

move that is not recognised

internationally. That is really all

the sensitivities. At the moment,

all countries that have an embassy

in Israel keep them in or close to

Tel Aviv, and they have consulates

in Jerusalem. This is a big

departure by Mr Trump.

Next the BBC

State Department correspondent on

why this is such a big shift in

policy.

The Americans have followed

the international community on this,

because its controversial for two

reasons, one because both Israelis

and Palestinians claim it, Israelis

say they want East Jerusalem as

their capital, so that is something

that should be decided in final

status negotiations. This is a place

that also is claimed wholly to three

religions, Christianity, Judaism and

Islam. There is a UN resolution that

says the status of Jerusalem should

be separate or decided ultimately in

a way that satisfies all of those

religions, so it does not actually

recognise Israeli sovereignty over

any part of Jerusalem. It's a very

contentious issue. The position of

the US has been told now that status

should be decided in final

negotiations on a peace deal between

Israel and the Palestinians. If Mr

Trump announces he will move the

embassy, either right away or at

some point definitively, or if he

says they will recognise Jerusalem

as the capital of Israel, then that

is a big departure from the previous

US policy. It also flies in the face

of pretty much everyone else, the

US's allies in the region, its

enemies, and the United Nations.

The International Olympic Committee'

says Russia will be banned

from the Winter Olympics.

But Russian athletes who can prove

they are clean will be allowed

to compete under a neutral flag -

we're not sure yet if Moscow

will let that happen.

The Games start in February

in Pyeongchang in South Korea.

The ban is because of allegations

the Russian government orchestrated

large-scale cheating

at the last Winter Games -

which were in in Sochi in Russia.

Russia denies this by the way.

It hasn't stopped the IOC banning

Russian Deputy Prime Minister

and former sports minister

Vitaly Mutko from all

future olympic games.

He's also the Chairman

for the 2018 Russia World Cup.

Here's the IOC

President Thomas Bach.

The report clearly lays out an

unprecedented attack on the

integrity of the Olympic Games and

support. The report includes in

particular the manipulation of the

anti-doping love for Tory at the

Olympic Winter games in Sochi, 2014.

As an athlete myself, I am feeling

very sorry for all the clean

athletes. -- anti-doping lavatory

cleaner

never before has a country been

banned by anti-doping violations.

This is an Olympic superpower, a

real heavyweight. It has proved in

the end that the IOC had no choice

but to issue the sanction. It was

expected given the evidence had been

mounting, which had always denied

state-sponsored doping, and

crucially a report given by our

previous Swiss President looking

into the wider issue of whether this

doping had been a state led

conspiracy between the years of 2011

and 2015, as laid out in Professor

McLaren's report last year, he

agreed with him. It was systemic

manipulation, of the anti-doping

rules, Russia was guilty of that, it

was state-sponsored doping and

that's why the IOC has been able to

issue this tough penalties today.

The President of Russia's

Olympic Committee says

he will appeal the ban.

As Alex told us, these

allegations aren't new.

In 2015, report

by the World Anti-Doping Agency,

Wada, found evidence

of state-sponsored doping in Russia.

Then last year this man

Richard McLaren led an independent

report and found that more

than 1,000 competitors in more

than 30 sports had been involved

in a conspiracy to conceal positive

drug tests - over

a five-year period.

There have already

been consequences.

The Russian cross-country skier

Alexander Legkov was one

of the first to be stripped

of his Sochi medals.

He's one of 25 Russians who have

been banned for life.

Let's talk to our correspondent from

BBC Russia. Russia say they did not

do this but there is a lot of

evidence.

You may laugh but Russians

keep saying there is no evidence,

that's what they claim. They say all

this is based on words of just one

man, who is cold a national traitor

now in Russia and is under

investigation at the moment. He

underlined that there is no document

saying let's start the doping

programme or whatever, so it's pure

politics, it's just another version

of Western sanctions, that's the

narrative.

This idea of Russians

competing under a neutral flag, will

gladly repeat in Dover that?

It's

hard to tell, we need to wait till

tomorrow morning.

-- will of

Vladimir Putin go for that?

The

Kremlin will take a while to go for

that. We'll take this decision on

the 12th, when all the Russian

national team members will meet to

discuss it.

As this had any ability

on Russia's ability to host the

World Cup?

At the moment, Fifa said

these are two separate events it

will look into the reports, but at

the moment they will only act based

on the hard evidence.

Thank you. If

you speak Russian, you can get news

through BBC Russia .com.

The Trump Russia story

continues to evolve at speed.

First - remember

this at the weekend.

That's the President admitting

he knew Michael Flynn

had broken the law.

Some suggested the tweet

could be an admission

of obstruction of justice.

Well Mr Trump's lawyer has told

the media outlet Axios

"The president cannot obstruct

justice because he is the chief law

enforcement officer under

the Constitution's Article II

and has every right to express

his view of any case".

In other words, the president

is above the law.

Mr Dowd also claimed

he wrote that tweet -

if he did, he does a good job

of mastering Mr Trump's

distinctive style.

Anthony Zurcher spoke to us

from Washington about this

latest intervention.

For a President's lawyer to say he

is writing tweets for the president

to immerse himself in an ongoing

controversy like this is remarkable.

But I have to point out that the

idea that the president is above and

obstruction of justice charge is a

relatively controversial, novel view

of residential culpability. If you

will remember when Bill Clinton was

impeached there were quite a few

Republican senators who voted to

convict him in the Senate trial,

based on obstruction of justice

allegations. I think this may be the

defence that the administration is

constructing here, but I doubt it

will be an iron clad one.

I

appreciate your not a lawyer,

Anthony, but in layman 's terms, how

do we define obstruction of justice

in terms of what the president did

or I think in this case, the

question is whether the President

knew

that Michael Flynn had

committed some kind of criminality,

lied to the FBI, then he went about

trying to disrupt the investigation,

telling FBI director James Comey to

go easy on Michael Flynn, that he

was a good guy, taking other steps

possibly to make it more difficult

to investigate Michael Flynn for

criminal acts that at least

according to this tweet if you

believe it at face value, criminal

acts the president himself was

aware. Politics will say this is not

a case that looks directly at

formula should be investigating

which is Russian meddling in the US

election. This is a process case

that could be a direction Robert

Mueller is going in.

The Democrat John Conyers has

resigned from Congress.

He's been mired in allegations

that he sexually harassed aids.

He denies the claims

and in announcing his resignation

he said "My legacy can't be

compromised or diminished in any way

by what we are going through now".

"This too shall pass."

Here's Anthony again.

Stay with us on Outside

Source - still to come.

We're going to turn to Yemen to look

at how the killing of former

President Ali Abdullah Saleh

could impact the country's

ongoing civil war.

An independent review

into the terrorist attack

in Manchester, in which 22 people

were killed, has concluded that

MI5 and the police may

have had opportunities

to prevent the bombing.

David Anderson QC, who lead

the review, said that while security

services were closing

in on the bomber, Salman Abedi,

it is "conceivable the attack might

have been avoided had the cards

fallen differently".

A young man, Salman Abedi, who they

had no reason to be particularly

suspicious of, though he certainly

had some bad associates. Despite

that they got quite close to him,

they had peripheral vision of what

he was perhaps thinking of planning.

At the end of the day, they were too

late, they had a meeting scheduled

just a few days after the attack. To

decide what should be done about

this man, and by then of course it

was too late. We can see with

hindsight that that intelligence was

highly relevant to the attack this

man was planning at the Manchester

Arena. At the time that was not

appreciated. Understandably, we can

see was a mistake.

The Palestinian, Egyptian,

Jordanian and Turkish leaders have

all warned President Trump

that his plans to move the American

embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

will have dangerous consequences.

Monday wasn't the start of the week

Theresa May was looking for.

She'd travelled to Brussels

hoping to announce

progress on Brexit talks.

Only to find out, she could do

nothing of the sort

because of what one party

in Northern Ireland thinks.

Back in Westminster,

the Prime Minister relies on the DUP

to have a functioning majority -

so when they pulled the plug

on a plan for the Irish

border, that was that.

Well Mrs May regrouped BOX one

with a cabinet meeting.

Here is Boris Johnson arriving.

After the cabinet meeting we heard

this from Mrs May.

Talks with the European Union have

made a lot of progress. There is

still a couple of issues we need to

work on.

Theresa May is expected to speak

to talk to the DUP leader by phone

later to try to break the deadlock.

But the DUP has already

restated its position.

When we looked at the wording, and

saw the import of all that, we knew

we could not sign up to anything

that was in that text that would

allow a border to develop in the

Irish Sea.

Needless to say this all came up

in parliament today.

Here's the opposition.

Mr Speaker, what an embarrassment.

It is one thing to go to Brussels

and fall out with those on the other

side of the negotiating table, it is

quite another to go to Brussels and

fall out with those supposedly on

your own side of the negotiating

table.

We recognise that as we exit

we must respect the integrity of the

EU single market and the customs

union but we are equally clear we

must respect the integrity of the

United Kingdom.

And there was criticism from

the Prime Minister's party too -

who said she should say this

to the EU.

You need to change this process, and

to back off. Otherwise we get on

with other arrangements.

That was in Westminster.

In Dublin, the Irish

Prime Minister had to

face his own parliament.

Remember he thought

there was a done deal -

only to find out Theresa May hadn't

cleared it with the DUP.

Here he is earlier.

We cannot move on to phase two until

we have the assurances that we need,

that there will be no hard border.

And indeed the assurances we have

been promised for 18 months now, and

even longer. As things stand, the

ball is very much in London. The

ball is in London's court.

Finally we shift to Brussels.

That perhaps given what the EU

is saying I shouldn't have bothered.

"The show is now in London" it says.

True - the show may be there,

but the Eu's in Brussels

and its clock is ticking.

The short term deadline is to get

to this point where sufficient

progress has been made -

and trade talks can start -

both sides hope that will be

by an EU summit later this month.

Eleanor Garnier is watching all this

in Westminster. I can't help but

look all this and scratch my head

and think, shouldn't you play this

with the DUP before you went to

Brussels?

That's one question

everyone in Westminster has been

asking. How did Theresa May get

herself into a position where she

was in Brussels having not been

completely 100% sure that the DUP

were onside. To update you on what

was meant to be happening today, we

understood there was going to be a

call, a phone call between Theresa

May and the leader of the DUP,

Arlene Foster, in the last few

minutes it has become apparent that

that call is not going to be

happening tonight, it seems there

has been little progress today,

despite the DUP's negotiating team

and the Conservatives chief whips

and government negotiating side,

when it comes to the DUP, plus some

others, they met for several hours

this afternoon. Yet not enough

progress was made. A DUP insider

saying tonight this is not just

changing a few words here and there,

they say there needs to be a lot of

change when it comes to the deal

right now. After these last few days

of this week, Theresa May is under

increasing pressure and as you point

out, this week was meant to be about

getting that signal that the UK and

the EU might be able to move from

phase one of the talks, about the

divorce side of things, to phase

two, which is all about the future

relationship, trade relationship we

might have with the EU. Certainly

Theresa May is under pressure and

this is not the week she wanted to

have started with.

Thank you. We

will leave it there. If you want

more background on the Brexit talks,

head online to our website.

Let's look at the fallout

from the killing of Yemen's former

president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

He died in a roadside ambush

by Houthi rebels just

outside the capital Sanaa.

He had been allied to the Houthi

rebels but he recently shifted sides

and started cooperating

with the Saudi-led coalition.

And the Houthis took exception.

Well, this is the latest development

in a long and complex conflict.

Before we talk to BBC Arabic,

this short report from the BBC's

Mai Noman explains how we got here.

For many year many, this was the

only president they knew. Until the

first event, remember the Arab

Spring? You many came out on the

street as well.

Meant to be a transitional period,

but that did not go so well. Saleh

was accused of meddling. Then

armed rebels took control of large

areas of the country. You should

also know that Saleh and the Houthi

had previously fought each other on

and off the years. After being

ousted and replaced by his deputy,

Saleh formed an alliance with the

Houthi. That did not go down well

with Saudi Arabia, which accused a

man of supporting the Houthi. Then

Saudi Arabia led a coalition

targeting the Houthi rebels. That

was the start of nearly three years

of full-blown war. It has left

thousands dead and brought the

country to the brink of famine. Our

fourth turn of events happens days

before Saleh died. He shifted sides

yet again. He said he was willing to

start a new page with Saudi Arabia,

and fought off against the Houthis.

In the final turn of events, Saleh

was killed by his former allies.

Ali Abdullah Saleh's son

has reportedly vowed

to avenge his father's death.

That makes a complicated military

situation even more complex.

Rasha Qandeel from BBC Arabic.

From the initial reactions it's like

an ultimate victory to the Houthi,

they think they will be the sole

power on the ground. Actually the

disappearance of Ali Abdullah Saleh

would make the shift in power go a

bit more risky. He still has

followers, and there are more

leaders to his party, the General

people's congress, outside Yemen

than there are inside. Especially

after the invitation of his son

today to move towards the capital

and defeat the Houthis, so things

can change dramatically after his

disappearance.

My guess is reaction

to these events in Yemen very much

depends on which part of Yemen you

focus on?

That's absolutely correct.

In the north there is a sense of

shock. So many people still like to

Saleh despite everything that

happened after the Arab Spring. In

the south, totally different, levels

of people celebrating. He was the

responsible party for the decision

to bomb the South in 1994 to reunify

the country and overcome the

Communist part of Yemen. They did

not really stand by him and they

were happy for Emirates and their

men playing behind the scenes to

take over the power politically.

Absolutely extraordinary

scenes in Ukraine earlier.

Let me show you this video.

It features the former president

of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili -

who has a complex relationship with

Ukraine.

Earlier the authorities

tried to detain him

at his flat in Kiev -

Mr Saakashvili then

got onto the roof -

and called his supporters.

But he was captured.

And pushed into a vehicle.

By which time a big crowd

of his supporters had gathered.

And Jonah Fisher was watching.

We believe he is inside that blew a

vehicle that, he was arrested by the

authorities this morning, his

supporters have turned out to make

sure he does not go anywhere. We

have seen clashes for the last

couple of hours, Hebert gas has been

used by the security forces, and we

have a stand-off, the supporters

don't want to be taken... More

pepper gas. People have been trying

to reach his vehicle, the one trying

to take him away. To try to release

him, effectively.

Incredibly, he has been broken out

of his vehicle.

A short addition of Outside Source

today, because next is coverage of

the Turner prize, coming up shortly.