28/01/2016 BBC News at Six

Warnings that the Zika virus is spreading explosively.

Up to four million people could be infected in the next year.

The mosquito borne virus - suspected of causing birth defects

in babies - is expected to spread right across the Americas.

In Brazil the army's drafted in to help warn people about how

If there's just one little gap in a tank like this,

Imagine multiplying that thousands of times.

World health officials have called an emergency meeting next week

to discuss ways of tackling the crisis.

Also tonight: A man carrying two guns and a copy of the Koran

At least 26 migrants have drowned off the coast off Greece -

On hold - the Chancellor postpones selling off the government's

final stake in Lloyds bank - blaming turmoil on global stock markets.

And the winner of the record ?33 million lottery jackpot is finally

found. And on Reporting Scotland at 6.30:

Half a billion pounds of funding is announced to support

the economy of the north east. And it's down to Andy Murray now

to make it three Scots into the finals of

the Australian Open. Good evening and welcome

to the BBC News at Six. The Zika virus - which is thought

to cause birth defects in babies - could infect up to four million

people in North and South America That's the warning from

the World Health Organisation which is holding an emergency

meeting next week to discuss ways of dealing with the virus -

which is transmitted by mosquitoes. So far it has spread to more

than 20 countries. Officials are warning that in Brazil

alone, one and a half million people Our Science editor David Shukman

is in the city of Recife in North East Brazil where it's

thought more than 100,000 people could have caught the virus -

which has no cure. The slums of Brazil are the front

line in what has become We watch as soldiers try to search

every single home here. Because one of the very few ways

to combat the Zika virus is to hunt While we are with the patrol,

soldiers find exactly the conditions The challenge is that

everywhere you look, And because in a favela

like this, the supply is not But if there is just

one gap in a tank like this, the mosquito can get in and you have

got yet another problem. Imagine multiplying that

thousands of times. In a tiny yard, a discovery,

a larva which left alone would emerge as a mosquito

within 48 hours. Health officials

sterilise the water. A tiny victory in a war

which is proving hard to win. There is no definite

proof that the Zika virus caused her microcephaly

but the evidence is growing. Her mother says she was caught

by surprise, but she will do everything to help make

her baby's life better. In this one city, Recife,

officials say up On a map, pins mark the cases

of microcephaly, There is a major public

health challenge, probably about the most difficult challenges

we have to face And it is already becoming

a globalised issue. In a government lab,

analysis of a sample But despite all the gleaming

technology here, there are key questions about the virus that

scientists simply can't answer. If a woman has Zika,

is the risk of having That is very important for women's

choice, for the importance We don't know if there is a viral

treatment which will prevent This is the first major city

to be hit by the virus. Because it was taken

completely by surprise, That means it is almost

inevitable that more babies There is a lesson in this,

for the other cities around the world which are

vulnerable Day after day and street

by street, it will take real And for many babies

and those yet to be born, And you can get more information

about the Zika virus French police have arrested a man

carrying two guns at the Disneyland theme park outside

Paris this afternoon. Our correspondent Lucy

Williamson is in Paris. Well, we know that two people have

now been arrested, the man and his female companion. They were

reportedly booked into the New York hotel inside the Disneyland complex.

It was when the man was walking into the entrance of the hotel through

the metal detector, that alarms went off. Police found he had two guns in

his suitcase, a box of ammunition and also a copy of the Koran. He was

arrested, and after a short search for his companion, she was arrested

as well. Adding to the mystery of all this, our reports coming through

now, saying the initial elements suggested police that they are

excluding terrorism as a motive for carrying guns into the Hotel. We are

very much in the dark about what happened today at Disneyland Paris.

With France under a state of emergency, and the government

warning the population to be on high alert for further attacks, incidents

like this do nothing to dispel the fear. You can see from the response,

what high alert France is under right now. Thank you.

The Chancellor has postponed the sale of the government's

final stake in Lloyds Banking Group, saying the global turmoil

in the markets and slowing growth had prompted the delay.

The Chancellor said that he would not give the go-ahead

Here's our Economics editor Kamal Ahmed.

Fancy owning a bit of a bank? Joining a journey to a new era of

shareholder democracy? The government thought you might do and

thousands were interested in buying into the biggest privatisation since

the 1980s. Today, the Chancellor applied the brakes. My principal

concern is frankly the turbulence in the stock markets. That is not the

right time to have a big share sale to the British public. We need those

markets to calm down and then we can proceed with the sale. Since the New

Year, markets have tumbled, banks and struggled and the economy has

slowed. The taxpayer to ?20 million into these banks and I want to get

the money back. It was the big election idea, sold by the Prime

Minister, as a way of raising ?2 billion to pay off the government's

debt. Now selling off the government's stake in Lloyds and the

other collapsed bank RBS, seems a long way off. When it comes to

Britain's banks, this is what the government still owns. The state has

a 9% stake in Lloyds bank, down from 50%. It paid 74p a share to rescue

the bank in 2008. Those shares are now only worth 64p a share, meaning

the government would make quite a loss if it sold now. It also owns

73% of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Eight years ago it paid 500 and 2p

per share for the bailout. Now those shares are worth the less than 200

and 50p a share. It was the falling price of Lloyds that really raised

the red flags for the Treasury. George Osborne is still keen on a

share sale, but my banking sources tell me it could be next year before

that share price is healthy enough, to offer millions of shares to

hundreds of thousands of small investors. Potential buyers of the

shares admitted they were disappointed. It is frustrating

because the decision seemed to have been made and now it has been back

track Don. It is something when someone made a decision this morning

and then all of a sudden they made the change. There was no sign of it

coming. Eight years after the financial crisis, there are still

plenty of warning signs. The gloomy figure also reflected in

the latest figures on the UK economy? Absolutely. If you imagine

how we started this new Year, everything has been more twitchy,

more nervous, there has been fear around in the global economy. If you

roll back a year and think about the growth figure in 2014, it was 2.9%,

pretty healthy. George Osborne was pleased with that number and said we

are beacon of hope in global economies. Today, the Office for

National Statistics has announced a figure for 2015 a year later, and

that is 2.2%. So, a slowing. The Chancellor says we are still doing

pretty well, but there are clearly lots of concerns. Some of those are

international. Things like China slowing down, the exports may not be

as strong to countries like that. The oil price is very low. Good for

people filling up their cars with petrol, but not so good for things

like the North Sea. The final thing that George Osborne is concerned

about is the growth is coming from consumption, from us as consumers.

There is not much evidence of that rebalancing the economy, the march

of the makers the Chancellor likes to talk about, where we manufacture

and export things, rather than just basing our economic growth in

consumption, and I'm sure that is something which is concerning for

the Treasury. Thank you. A sixth city broker has been cleared

of trying to fix the inter-bank There was applause at

Southwark Crown Court when Darrell Read was found not

guilty of conspiracy to defraud. Five other brokers received

the same verdict yesterday. They'd all been accused of helping

the trader, Tom Hayes, who is serving an 11 year jail

sentence for manipulating the rate. Police have dropped their

investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse linked

to the failed charity, Detectives at Scotland Yard said

they found no evidence The organisation -

which always denied the claims - was shut down in August

when questions were raised Demands on the NHS across

the UK keep on growing. But research for the BBC suggests

patients in Wales are having to wait longer for many types of treatment

than those in England. Last year the gap was widest for hip

replacements with those in Wales having to wait for

an extra four months. Our Wales correspondent,

Hywel Griffith has been finding out. With every new appointment card,

life on the waiting list seems to be getting worse for Raymond. Suffering

chronic pain and sleepless nights, he is stuck halfway through his

journey for a double hip replacement. The right hip was

replaced while living in England after an 18 week wait. He moved to

Wales to be told there would be an 18 month wait for the left hip to be

treated. I think it is ridiculous. It is people's lives they are

messing around with. I am 64. How many years have I got left? I don't

want to spend 18 months in agony in the twilight years of my life. Hip

surgery is not the only treatment where there seems to be a

significant gap. In average in England the wait for a cataract

operation is 61 days, in Wales, it is 115, almost twice as long. For

hire at bypass operations, the weight in England is 57 days, in

Wales it is 111, almost double. Only one key measure do Welsh hospitals

perform better, on kidney transplants. In England the weight

is 20 days, in Wales it is 18 days. Scotland and Northern Ireland are

grappling with their own waiting list problems. Why are Welsh wait so

long? Welsh people are older and there is the industrial legacy but

that does not explain the full difference which is very stark. Is

it down to political decisions here in Cardiff Bay? The Welsh Government

weather the storm went for three years it refused to protect NHS

spending from cuts. It argues waiting times do not tell the whole

story. If you ask patients what matter to them, almost all of them

will tell you they are interested in the outcome. Will it result in pain

and discomfort? Absolutely gutted. As the appointment cards mount, all

Raymond can do is hope that his treatment will eventually be worth

the wait. Warnings the Zika virus -

carried by mosquitoes - could have infected 4 million

people by next year, near extinction - the polecat

is making a comeback And coming up on Reporting Scotland

at 6.30: The Borders Rail Link carries its 500,000th passenger,

just months after reopening. And Andy Murray looks to make it

three Scots in the finals The coastguard in Greece says

at least 26 migrants drowned when the boat they were travelling

in from Turkey sank in the Aegean Sea, off

the island of Samos. It is the second boat to sink

in as many days. The last journey of those who died

at sea ended this morning, Rescuers carefully brought

the bodies to shore. We don't know the names

of the children who died. We don't know who they

were travelling with, nor what made them or their families

get on boats that couldn't make it Out in the Aegean, rescue boats

continued to search for bodies. The shipwrecked migrants

from Iraqi Kurdistan may have spent more than 24 hours in the water

before they were found. This afternoon, outside

a police station, a small group of survivors

tried to keep warm. This man lost his wife

and two of his children. For a day at sea, he

held onto his youngest child's body, hoping in vain

that the infant could be revived. This doctor is treating some

of the other survivors It is very difficult

to manage the death of young It is very difficult

to deal with relatives, mothers and fathers

crying, because they have We found the migrants'

damaged boat on the beach. And today the government responded

to growing calls to do more to help unaccompanied children from Syria

and camps in the region. There are promises of extra

money and resources, but only in "exceptional

circumstances" will children from the camps be permitted

to come to the UK. Half of all refugees are children.

Some fleeing war and persecution with their families, but many

millions" on their own. At the Calais camp known as the jungle,

desperate young people are knocking on Britain's door, pleading for

sanctuary. This 15-year-old from Syria says he has a brother-in-law

in the UK and just wants to be a schoolboy again. The government is

under intense pressure to do more to help the vast numbers of

unaccompanied children who have fled from Syria and other war zones. Some

charities say the UK should accept at least 3000 more. But instead,

ministers have come up with a plan which they say will discharge --

discourage vulnerable children from arriving on Britain's doorstep. The

plan focuses first on the conflict regions themselves, working with the

United Nations Britain will help assess the scale of the child

welfare problem, but only in exceptional circumstances will they

bring any children to the UK. Ministers say it is much better that

a vulnerable child remains close to his or her home. We're playing our

role. I said that we are prepared to take more orphans from the region

but I think it is right, our approach, to take refugees from the

region, not encouraging people to make the difficult, potentially

lethal journey to Europe. Our approach is, I think, compassionate

and generous and I think it is right. The refugee crisis continues

to claim lives on the EU's border. Today the UK pledged an extra ?10

million to support vulnerable children who make it to Europe, and

extra resources for registering stranded youngsters. But beyond

Britain's legal obligations, there is no commitment to take any child.

I think we need to see a more engaged the prime ministers here.

Really looking at the issues and not just saying we will only help people

in the region. There is a crisis in Europe and are children who

desperately need our help. Thousands of unaccompanied children have

arrived at the UK's border. Last week, a court ruled that under

Britain's Asylum obligations, three unaccompanied children and young

adult in the Calais camp should be allowed to join was relatives in the

UK. A full ruling will be issued tomorrow and charity workers are

trying to find any child who might be affected. There is absolutely no

sign here that the desperate conditions children and young people

are living in our preventing further children making the very dangerous

journey. The number of refugee children who might come to the UK

under the day's scheme is likely to be small. The fuel with relatives

there will be allowed in. Ministers argue that to avoid exacerbating the

migrant crisis and to protect overstretched services, children

without family and community ties must be turned away.

A jury's been hearing how a British medical student planning drive-by

shootings on the streets of London posed with a gun and a book

The BBC has obtained the pictures of Tarik Hassane who's

part of a gang on trial at the Old Bailey.

This is the British medical student currently on trial for planning an

alleged terrorist drive-by shooting, posing with a gun and a book about

Osama bin Laden. He is accused of swearing allegiance to the Islamic

State but he told police he was not a supporter of Islamic State. He is

one of four men from West London arrested in the autumn of 2014 and

now standing trial for preparation of terrorist acts and conspiracy to

murder. Two of them had been at school together. What the men had

not realised was that for months of 2014 they were being watched.

Surveillance officers were following them and photographed one of the men

as he used his computer under this tree and regents park. The

prosecution says that at this moment, he was covertly messaging a

jihadists overseas. In man who was helping him set up secret

communications software. They were being watched on a night that the

prosecution said a gun was handed over here in West London. It is

alleged that Nile Hamlet, in the tracksuit, had obtained the gun,

which was first in the black and grey bag and was then stuck into the

back of this padded jacket. The handgun was later recovered when he

was arrested the next day. All four men deny conspiracy to murder and

preparing a terrorist plot inspired by Islamic State.

Plans to overhaul the way legal aid contracts are awarded to solicitors

have been abandoned by the Justice Secretary Michael

Mr Gove said there were "real problems" in pressing ahead

with the proposals drawn up by his predecessor

in the face of a number of protests and 99 separate legal challenges

Almost three weeks after their numbers were drawn,

the second winner of a record ?33 million National Lottery jackpot has

The ticket was bought in Worcester, but whose is it?

We don't know because they have decided to remain anonymous. That

means that there is a rather curious atmosphere here tonight. Everybody

is looking out for neighbours suddenly coming home in expensive

new cars, or friends who suddenly decide to move out to one of the

desirable villages on the outskirts of the city. What we do know is that

this is an undisputed ticket. It is not one of the hundreds of people

who came forward saying that they had the ticket, but it was damaged

or lost or stolen. This one is a clear winner. The ?33 million is

going straight to these mystery winners. What happens as far as the

other claimants is concerned will be up to Camelot. As for Worcester's

multi, multimillionaire, what do you do with ?33 million? It has been

suggested that Worcester city football club could do with a new

stadium, because they do not have one at the moment. One definite I

can give you is that it was not me. The polecat, a native British animal

that was almost completely wiped out, has made

a remarkable recovery. In 1915, the only polecats left

were to be found in Wales and Scotland and it was feared

they were heading for extinction. But now a major nationwide survey

has found that the animals have Our science correspondent

Rebecca Morelle has more. With its distinctive markings,

the polecat is a secretive creature and it is a vital part

of Britain's wildlife heritage. But these animals were once pushed

to the brink of extinction by us. These little fellows scrambling out

of their hideout to say how But in the wild, thanks

to their appetite for chickens and game birds they were considered

a major pest and killed Polecats became really,

really rare at the start of the 20th century, and were basically confined

to a stronghold in mid-Wales. But a new survey shows they are

returning to the countryside and Suffolk is just one area

where they are making a comeback Scientists say legal protection has

helped them flourish. This is something we really need

to celebrate, the recovery of a native carnivore we once almost

lost completely from Britain. We want to see them back here,

as widespread as they can be. Here at the British Wildlife Centre,

we are incredibly lucky to get a close look at what are

normally very shy animals. Conservationists are thrilled

at their success story, but now they fear that new threats

could be looming on the horizon. In the wild, growing numbers

are dying after eating poisoned rats, and more are being

killed on the roads. Some are also crossbreeding

with their domestic But many are optimistic

that the animals can continue I love the idea that polecats

could be living out there. I don't necessarily need to see

them, I just need to know Sometimes when you just

see their poo or a footprint or some prey remains, it

means they are there. That's good, and the fact

that they are back in England in my lifetime has to be

counted as a success. This comeback is a rare

natural recovery. Now conservationists say

they want to ensure that the polecat A chilly start for all of us but

glorious sunshine across central and southern areas. As depicted in

Guernsey. A different story further north in Perth and Kinross, ominous

looking, cloudy skies, and wet weather. The rain in the North West

has been the overture to this, the main event. Gertrude, riding through

the night. It is the seventh major storm of the season. The Met office

has issued an amber weather warning, so be prepared for possible

disruption. Certainly, it is going to mean business. Also, we will see

heavy rain, moving through Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. There is

a potential for localised flooding. But storm force gusts of winds will

be the real cause for concern. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and

north-west England for a time. Some of that rain heavy and persistent.

That will make 14 years driving conditions. The rain will gradually

push its way south and east through the day, weakening off considerably

into the afternoon. Brighter skies, sunny spells and scattered showers,

but still staying windy for all. But for the South West, turning colder

in the North, and pretty significant because through the night we will

see wintry showers at low levels. Blizzard conditions with heavy rain

likely across the South West. Slowly moving south and east. That will

gradually ease first thing on Saturday morning. Plenty of weather

to talk about in the next 12-24 hours. More live on the news channel

later this evening. A reminder of our main story this evening. The

World Health Organisation warns that the Zika virus is spreading fast and

could have affected 4 million people by next year.