02/05/2014 BBC News at One

Bloodshed in Ukraine, as the government launches

a military assault against pro Russian groups in the east.

As two Ukrainian helicopters are shot down, Russia says the shaky

We'll be live in Donetsk with the latest - Also this lunchtime:

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams is questioned for a third day over

Her daughter says she is "ready to name names".

They've done so much to me over the past years.

British drugs firm AstraZeneca rejects

a new ?63 billion takeover bid from its US rival Pfizer.

why convenience shopping could get even more convenient.

This super-head faces being struck off after spending hundreds of

thousands of pounds on herself. Hello, good afternoon,

and welcome to the BBC News At One. Ukraine has launched a military

operation against pro-Russian separatists in the eastern city

of Sloviansk, in the latest round Ukraine says two of its helicopters

have been shot down, and at least In Moscow,

President Putin's spokesman said the offensive has, in effect, destroyed

the last hope for the implementation of the Geneva agreements which were

intended to defuse the crisis. We'll get the latest from

the eastern Ukraine in a moment. But, first, here's our world affairs

correspondent, Nick Childs. The report suggests the Ukrainian

government has launched its most determined operation yet to

dislodge pro-Russian separatists from their positions in and

around the town of Sloviansk. Raising the tensions

and stakes again in the crisis over Government forces have already

paid a price in this new showdown. These unverified pictures,

apparently of one of two military helicopters downed

in the operations so far. Two Ukrainian personnel killed,

according to the authorities There was another

helicopter shot down. This man was abandoned

by his people. This may look like the most serious

government offensive so far, but how far will these forces go

and what will the fallout be? Here, an army column is locked by

locals. In Sloviansk, they are reinforcing

their defences should Ukrainian military tried to move in.

TRANSLATION: We are standing here to prevent military people coming into

our city to protect our land and people. We are normal people of the

city. There are no Russian troops here as they claim. From the

self-proclaimed Russian mayor of the city, an appeal. It is under siege.

He asks women and children to stay at home and men to defend the city.

Kiev says it is not facing just ordinary protesters but heavily

armed Russian backed militants. Moscow says Kiev Gracnar are we

looking down the barrel of further escalation here?

Let us go to our special correspondent. I am six miles from

the border of Sloviansk. There is a large group of Russian locals. From

where I am standing as I look across, I can see Ukrainian troops

patrolling in the fields. There has been a heavy downpour of rain, it

has pushed people back. It is a tense situation here. At one

checkpoint, there has been an attempt to take away body armour.

Through the morning, people have been getting Hortense.

The Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, is being questioned

for a second day about the murder of a woman during the Northern Ireland

Last night, Jean McConville's eldest child told the BBC she was now ready

to give police the names of those she believed were involved.

Jon Brain is outside the police station in Antrim where

This Gerry Adams may have arrived here voluntarily on Wednesday

evening. Whether he thought he would still be

here on Friday lunchtime is another matter. As detectives continued to

question him about the Jean McConville 's case, one of her

daughters has said she has significant information she wants to

give them. For more than four decades, her life has been blighted

by the abduction of Jean McConville. Aged just 15 at the time, she never

saw her mother again. In later years, she watched as search teams

look for her body. It was finally discovered on the beach at County

Louth in 2003. She says she has always known who was responsible for

her mother's death and is now prepared to name names. I have no

fear anymore and I will happily give names to the police. What are they

going to do to me? They have done so much already. Put a bullet in my

head? They know where I live. I have always believed Gerry Adams was

involved in the murder of my mother, yes. Gerry Adams is one of Northern

Ireland's most senior figures, he strenuously denies he had any

involvement in what happened to Jean McConville. Former paramilitary 's

have implicated him in a murder in recordings made for an oral history

project. There was only one man who gave the order that man to be

executed, that man is now the head of Sinn Fein. Believed by all and

tearing himself for questioning, Mr Adams may be trying to resolve the

problem which has overshadowed him for years. If he is not charged, he

will say he has done his civil duty, he went to the police and

asked them to put the Chargers to me and I answered them. They haven't

been able to charge me. Sinn Fein claim the timing of the rest is

politically motivated, designed to undermine the party in the run-up to

the elections. It has emerged Martin McGuinness was found last night by

David Cameron, to assure him that would be no political interference

will stop the Prime Minister and I appreciate the sensitivity of the

situation which is why he was engaging with the deputy and First

Minister to give the message that working together on those big

challenges for Northern Ireland is crucially important. But for Helen

McHendry, the only crucial thing is to get justice for her beloved

other. This has been used tensions between

those who want to move on from the troubled past and those who say you

cannot do that if it means denying justice to the victims.

The 15-year-old boy, charged with the murder of the teacher

Ann Maguire, has appeared via a videolink at Leeds Crown Court.

The teenager, who can't be named because he's under 16, is accused

of stabbing Ann Maguire to death in her classroom on Monday morning.

The former publicist Max Clifford is due to be sentenced today,

after he was found guilty of eight charges of indecent assault

on teenage girls and women during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Our correspondent Richard Lister is at Southwark Crown Court for us.

Max Clifford left his Surrey mansion today with a suitcase, anticipating

he would be spending two nights in jail. When he got to court this

morning, he was as defiant as ever, insisting he stood by the account he

had given, that he never indecently assaulted anybody. He turned down

the opportunity to apologise to his victims. Once inside court, he was

forced to listen to the mitigation statements from his victims, the

youngest was 15 when she was assaulted by Max Clifford. In a

statement, she said her schooling had suffered, the abuse had impacted

on her relationship with her pants and with her husband. The judge is

expected to pass sentence this afternoon and said he would be

considering consecutive sentences for each of the eight counts on

which Max Clifford was found guilty. AstraZeneca has rejected

a new ?63 billion takeover proposal It had upped its offer for the

British company, to ?50 a share. Let's get more from

our business editor, Kamal Ahmed. Kamal, let's analyse these latest

developments in a move that has This is a business deal and

political controversy. AstraZeneca rejected the deal. In reality, they

want more money. Wolf eyes comeback with a better bid? It is hoped so.

Now, let us turn to the politics. Pfizer have made a number of

pledges. In those pledges, they have said they want to see substantial

research and element in Cambridge. That they will commit to a European

and tax headquarters in the UK. And manufacturing jobs will be retained.

That is important. One of the key manufacturing sites is in the

constituency of the Chancellor who has been taking a key interest.

Politicians want to ensure if this deal goes ahead it will not mean

less research, or fewer jobs in the UK.

Royal Bank Of Scotland has announced a pre-tax profit for the first

That's double what it made in the same period last year.

However, the bank says that it still faces

difficult conditions, and will face costs for winding down the so called

A part-time judge, Constance Briscoe, has been jailed

for 16 months, after being found guilty of lying to the police.

She was convicted yesterday of perverting the course of justice in

connection with the investigation into how the former Cabinet

Minister, Chris Huhne, asked his then wife, Vicky Pryce, to take the

Our legal correspondent Clive Coleman was in the Old Bailey

courtroom this morning to hear the sentencing.

A woman who once passed sentence on other people today have a

devastating sentence passed upon her, she was sentenced to three

counts of intending to convert the course of justice, lying to police

investigating the points swapping case, investigating how that story

got into the press. Constance Briscoe lied about her involvement.

And she falsified around witness statement. And then she supplied a

false document to an expert witness with the intention of misleading the

jury. Sentencing her today, the judge said it was a personal tragedy

for Constance Briscoe and her family. He described her as a woman

who had been a role model but said there was the arrogance of educated

people and disrespect for the law. Our main story. Ukrainian forces had

been fighting pro-Russian troops in the east of the country. Moscow

calls for an end to the violence. calls for an end to the

Still to come, space, the final frontier for gastro food?

Later on BBC London, as house prices hit a record high, this row of

garages sells for three quarters of ?1 million.

And scientists are studying these brothers checking in the Arctic.

With so many of us living increasingly busy lives, getting to

the shops isn't always that easy. There is more competition between

outlets to make it simply for people to shop online and to pick up their

goods. Today, that condition intensified. John Lannis has opened

a click and collect outlet at a railway station.

temperature-controlled lockers, to collection points and getting your

eBay order at an Argos, shopping is getting more convenient. This is the

new battleground in retail. We are in the exhibition that we have put

together. Ill tells the story of John Lewis back to 1864. They are

focussing on celebrating 150 years of history this weekend. But the

boss has most got his eye on the future. The ease of click and

collect. It has been a phenomenon. You still have to go to another high

street location. We are about to trial the new news - click and

commute - taking small shops offering click and collect and we

will see if that works. Click and collect's growing fast. It now makes

up nearly a fifth of all online sales from high street retailers, a

figure that has quadrupled in a few years. How convenient could things

get? Amazon in America is trialling these drones to drop off deliveries.

In hi-tech South Korea, Wi-Fi balloons are used to connect

consumers with offers, but what will shopping look like in the future?

When you walk into a store, the technology you are carrying, your

mobile phone, will liaise with the store and tell it who you are. It

will have a photograph of your face. It will know what you like. As you

stand in various places in the store, you will get personalised

service, personalised signage and personal pricing. In the old days,

shops made it their business to know all about their customers. In

future, the march of technology will mean retailers will know more about

us and what we want. More than 300,000 people are taking

part in the world's biggest study The aim - to try to predict what

factors may increase the risk Our medical correspondent, Fergus

Walsh, reports. Like it or not, as we

get older, our memory and speed of Four years ago, I did a series of

puzzles, and now I'm repeating them, I was joined by the scientist who

helped devise them. He says our reaction times will have

slowed, but even the tiniest changes could help the Medical Research

Council study discover why some people and not others go on to get

dementia. We hope to find out what are the

causes of cognitive decline with age, whether they are genetic, or

lifestyle, or both. And we hope to be able to advise people how to

reduce their risk of cognitive decline and therefore dementia over

time. If we can delay the onset of dementia by five years, we can halve

the number of people in the UK that actually get it. And I think that's

a result for me. Ann Johnson was diagnosed with

Alzheimer's disease when she was It affects her short-term memory and

makes reading difficult. She'd like to know why dementia has

affected her family. My father had this before me. His

lifestyle, like mine, there was nothing wrong with it. I can't

identify what caused it for him or for me. We need to identify if there

are any common denominators there which give us a clue as to what may

be the cause of this. That is what UK Biobank will seek to

find out. Scientists are now analysing the DNA

from half a million volunteers, and will compare this with information

on lifestyle and health records. It is a huge biomedical database.

This should yield vital clues on dementia and may eventually lead to

new treatments. David Cameron has repeated his

promise to give the public a vote on Britain's membership of the European

Union IF he wins next year's Launching the Conservatives' local

election campaign, the Prime Minister said he won't

lead a Government that could not - or did not - deliver an in/out

referendum. This is our message on the stump and

on the doorstep. We have come this far, from a great recession, to a

great British revival. If you want to see this progress through, if you

want our country to go from strength to strength, if you want to finish

the job we have started together, then back the party with a plan.

Back the party that delivers a better, more secure future for you,

for your family, for Britain and vote Conservative on May 22nd. Thank

you. Our Political Correspondent Gary

O'Donoghue listened to David Cameron's speech in Newcastle

Under Lyme. What did you make of it? It is interesting that David Cameron

came to this big JCB warehouse, massive seven football pitches in

size, in the north of Staffordshire to underline his point that the

economy had been recovering. He talked about a great British

recovery. Now, he did say that Labour had short-term gimmicks and a

very interesting swipe at UKIP here. He said, "I don't need to discredit

them, they do a good enough job of doing that themselves." Also a

cautious message, talking about the job not being dene, "Give us more

time." That is the message not just for these local and European

elections, that is the message you will hear from him and the rest of

the Conservative Party for the next year into the next general election.

That is what they believe will persuade the British people that

they need five more years to spread and secure the recovery.

The Top Gear presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, has apologised for

appearing to use a racist word during a recording of the programme.

The material was never broadcast but he said today it had been a mistake.

#34R50ez Please be assured I did everything in my power to not use

that word. And as I'm sitting here begging your forgiveness, for the

fact that obviously my efforts weren't quite good enough.

A new campaign group has been launched against an independent

Scotland promoting itself as a "people's campaign voiced by

ordinary Scots" - without any politicians.

Gavin Esler has been finding out more.

A recording studio on the outskirts of Edinburgh. A group of musicians

putting the finishing touches to a song that they hope could save the

United Kingdom. The song is part of a new campaign called No Borders.

Their bid will be officially launched in two weeks to keep

Scotland within the UK. The Union is the most successful merger of

sovereign nations in the world. For the benefit of all the people and

prosperity and safety, they can pull together. That is what the Union is

about. Here in the heart of Glasgow, in fact almost anywhere you go,

anywhere in Scotland, you are never far away from some monument or

memorial to our 300 years of shared British history. While the No

Borders campaign is reluctant publicly to criticise the official

"No" campaign Better Together, others are not so polite, saying

it's been a shambles. The idea is a grassroots campaign to rival that of

the pro-independence "Yes" campaign based on testimonials from those who

wish to remain in the UK. The "yes" campaign appears more confident than

ever and they are scathing of what they see as disarray in the "no"

camp. There is a break-up of the "no" campaign. It's failed miserably

to make an impact. Some of its own supporters are beginning to feel

they have to break away. In the music industry, they say that you

should never rewrite a hit and No Borders believes the UK has been a

great hit worldwide for 300 years. But others say it might be time to

sing a new song. Ever since astronauts have been

going into space they've complained that the food is bland and

tasteless! Which is why the British astronaut,

Tim Peake, has asked British school children to come up with some

ideas for space-age gastro food - Here's our Science Correspondent,

Pallab Ghosh. Eating on the International Space

Station is different. The fooz is freeze-dried, bland and has a life

of its own. This is some... Schoolchildren have been asked by

Tim Peake to create more of a gourmet experience for him when he

is in space next year. Step one - try out what astronauts eat. Is it

nice eating it out of a packet? This is what Tim Peake might be eating

while he is up on the International Space Station. Dehydrated green

beans and mushrooms. Here is his fish course. And this is the kind of

thing he will be drinking - dehydrated orange and mango. Not the

most appetising of menus. Some of the food on board isn't as nice as

it could be. It is nutritional, but some of it is mushy and it lacks

taste and texture. And so I thought this is a great idea for - or a

great way for people to come up with an idea of something that is

nutritional, healthy, tastes good and also can have a bit of a

Britishness about it as well. And good food is vital for the exertions

of a long mission on the space station. We want the food to be so

good that he will want to share it with his colleagues on the space

station. We want a happy crew in space. A happy crew is an efficient

crew. Food is an important part of making them happy and effective as a

team. So here are some ideas from the pupils of this school in London.

It would be more appetising if it would be in a bowl or something,

that you can smell. Bacon, or sausages, so that he can have, like,

the British classic fry-up, maybe. So, it is now time for

schoolchildren to get their teeth stuck in to a project to create the

first great British dinner to be eaten in space.

She knew from an early age that she'd been adopted.

was that she had a twin sister, Lizzie.

They'd been separated at birth - one living her life in Aldershot -

Well now - after 78 years - they've been re-united.

An emotional reunion, back together after almost eight decades apart.

Their unmarried mother was in domestic service and couldn't afford

Anne was given up for adoption and never knew she had a twin

I wanted to pinch myself, am I dreaming? I've got someone, someone

from, you know, as well as me, you know, part of me, you know, twin.

Elizabeth knew she had a long-lost sister but she never thought they

would be reunited until she received a letter from Ann's daughter.

I saw Aldershot, oh, I did a double take on that. And opened it up and

looked at it and my eyes popped out of my head.

The sisters have agreed to take part in a university study into the lives

We want to get a comprehensive overview of their lives, their

abilities, their interests and really put it altogether as an

important case study because this is really the world's longest separated

For now, Ann and Elizabeth want to get to know each other better.

Blue eyes. Mother's blue eyes. Hello, mother!

Against the odds - sisterly love blossoming late in life.

A lot of catching up to do there. Now, let's catch up with the

weather. For most of us, we started the day

on a cloudy note. There are already signs that the weather is cheering

up. We should get brighter skies filtering southwards as we head

through the rest of the afternoon. The reason we will see some subtle

changes is because we have a weak cold front giving the odd spot of

rain. For most of us, it will be dry. That will sink southwards. It

is behind that front that the clearer skies will start to move in.

South East England slow to brighten up, so we will keep a lot of cloud.

Wales also staying probably rather cloudy. A few brighter spells

getting into the north. Yesterday, what a miserable day it was across

the North East of England. Temperatures around 6 Celsius in

some places. Today, it is dry and bright and a bit warmer as well. So

bright skies there. Northern Ireland will stay rather cloudy. Overnight,

the cloud will continue to thicken up across western areas. That will

stop temperatures from falling too low. Across Plymouth, Cardiff,

Belfast, temperatures 7-10 Celsius. It will be a different story further

east. Last night across northern Scotland, temperatures got down to

-4 Celsius. So a cold night coming up.

-4 Celsius. So a cold night coming The frost will be a bit more

widespread as well. -4 Celsius possible across the Vale of York.

Further south, the Midlands, we could see a few patches of frost.

Southern England, the coldest spots down to -2 Celsius. So expect a

cold, frosty start to the morning. But, at least there will be plenty

of sunshine to start the day. Thanks to an area of high pressure. For

Northern Ireland, the weather is going downhill pretty quickly.

Eventually, that rain will move into western Scotland. Otherwise, it will

stay dry. The rest of the bank holiday weekend - there is a bit of

uncertainty as far as the weather goes with weather fronts pestering

the North West of the British Isles. Across the eastern side of Scotland

and England, the weather is better. It should be dry for just about

everyone. The best of the sunshine the further south and east you are.

There could be further changes with the weather forecast because there

is a bit of uncertainty. You can stay one step ahead of the weather

by checking the forecast on bbc.co.uk/weather.

Thank you very much. Before we leave you, the headlines: Ukrainian forces

have been fighting pro-Russian troops in the east of the country.

Moscow calls for an end to the violence.

The Sinn Fein Leader is questioned for a third day over the murder of

Jean McConville more than 40 years ago.

That is all from the team here. Now, it is time to join