23/09/2016 BBC News at Six

The Syrian city of Aleppo endures some of the most intense bombing

It came hours after the Syrian government announced a fresh

offensive against rebel-held areas of the city.

TRANSLATION: Syrian and Russian warplanes carried out more than 150

air strikes on Aleppo last night, causing so much destruction.

We'll have the latest from the United Nations in New York.

The death of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling in

India eight years ago - two men are cleared of rape and murder.

More than eight million British users of Yahoo had their data stolen

in a cyber attack two years ago that's only just been made public.

But more than four in ten children in England didn't last year.

That's more than five million who failed to see an NHS dentist.

And why the cheetah is running from illegal wildlife traffickers.

Coming up in Sportsday at 6:30pm on BBC News,

we'll look ahead to a busy weeked in the Premier League,

as Jose Mourinho's Manchester United prepares to host the champions,

The city of Aleppo in Syria has come under heavy air

attack for a second day, after the Syrian government

announced a new offensive to retake areas controlled by rebels.

A 250,000 people have been living under siege there.

They've been told they can leave at a number of checkpoints,

but have been warned to stay away from so-called "terrorist

Human rights activists say that overnight at least 30 people died.

They have grown used to destruction in Aleppo but never on this scale.

This man says a woman was killed here where three houses once stood.

In the ruins of the Syrian ceasefire, Eastern Aleppo is being

flattened. Here, they say they have never heard a loud explosion. And

when the dust settles, and with one eye on the skies overhead, they

search for bodies. Here in the dirt, in the doorway of a house, they have

spotted the head of a baby boy. The rescue workers have to move quickly

before another air strike. Gently, they take away the stone and the

dust, and they have him, and he is alive. The hospitals here are being

overwhelmed again. They have lost six medical staff over the past two

days of bombing. There have been nearly 250 air strikes in the past

24-hour is, and in Aleppo it is not just civilians being targeted, but

their rescuers, too. Above, the sound of aircraft that have just

bombed the neighbourhood. This is a base for the civil defence force,

the White helmets. Three of their rescue centres were bombed.

TRANSLATION: There have been more than 25 raids since this morning.

Civil defence teams were helping rescue people from under the rubble

and firefighters were here. Four vehicles were damaged and a fire in

June destroyed. We also lost an ambulance. The bombing has been

relentless. The Syrian regime and its allies are now preparing for a

ground offensive. TRANSLATION: This morning we heard

an earthquake and went out and sorry huge hole in the ground. We thought,

my God, what is this, what are we to him? Why does Assad hit us like

this? May God have revenge on him, that oppressor. Dozens have been

killed in the past 48 hours. We can't say how many. They are still

looking for the dead and missing. The ceasefire did not achieve peace,

but may just have given Russia and regime forces time to regroup and

prepare for one final push on Aleppo.

Let's go to James Robbins in New York, where talks

between the US and Russia have been taking place.

James, these talks have been going on for a week but can there be any

hope of success? No, I don't think so. Each evening, the prospect for a

negotiated end to this war has faded slightly further. And the new

development this evening is that the Syrian government side have said

they will not even go to Geneva next month for international talks which

the UN's envoy on Syria was hoping to convene. Without the Syrian

government there, there can be no talks, however fruitless talks may

have been in the past. It is looking very dark. Last night here in New

York there was another bust up between the United States and

Russia, what was to scribe is a long and disappointing meeting that

dragged on for more than two and a half hours. The two sides are not

even meeting today, the United States and Russia. If they can't get

together, there seems very little prospect of reopening negotiations.

Thank you, James Robbins. Two men have been cleared of raping

and killing a British schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling, who

was 15, was found dead She'd been at a beach party,

while the rest of her family Her mother, Fiona McKeown,

said she was devastated by today's Our correspondent Justin Rowlatt

reports from Goa. This report contains flash

photography. There was chaos as Scarlett

Keeling's mother left It had taken the judge seconds

to end her almost decade-long Her 15-year-old daughter was found

dead on a Goa beach in 2008. Her mother has always been

convinced it was murder. What does it tell you about

the police investigation that two days later you could

find crucial evidence There wasn't an

investigation at all. She forced the authorities

to perform a second autopsy which confirmed Scarlett had been

attacked before she died, and that she'd taken

a cocktail of drugs. Today, the two men accused

of grievous sexual assault and causing Scarlett's death left

the court as free men. One, Samson D'Souza,

said he'd always been Fiona MacKeown believes one reason

the case failed was that at the last moment a key witness decided not

to give evidence. Michael Mannion, a British man,

has repeatedly spoken about how he saw Samson D'Souza

attacking Scarlett. I saw this character

drive off on his scooter. In the light of the front beam

of his scooter, I saw He lives less than

an hour from London. All he had to do was turn up

at the Indian embassy Fiona says she will always regret

letting her 15-year-old daughter But at the end of the day,

I didn't murder her. The responsibility to sort that out

lies with the authorities here, and they've let me down

and Scarlett down as well. She says all she wants now is to be

back at home in Devon Justin Rowlatt, BBC News,

Goa. Here, the Information Commissioner

says some 8 million people in the UK have had their personal

information compromised by the hacking attack

on the internet giant Yahoo. Today the US company has been under

pressure to explain how data from half a billion customers

worldwide had been stolen. Yahoo has described the attack,

which happened two years We're getting used to hacking

attacks on big internet names Now one of the oldest brands

of all has suffered the biggest data breach in history with the details

of 500 million accounts stolen. Yahoo says the attack which took

place in 2014 was probably the work of what it called

state-sponsored actors. The UK's data regulator

says 8 million people There is an expectation

from all the data protection authorities that big organisations

like Yahoo have the appropriate security measures in place and stay

one step ahead of the hackers. While any password data stolen

was encrypted and should be secure, Yahoo users are still advised

to take action. First and foremost get into Yahoo,

if you are a customer, make sure you have changed your

password, make sure you unable Using your mobile device receiving

an SMS to help you log in. Also if you reused the password

anywhere else you have to change Password reuse is a tried and tested

attack vector for criminals. Yahoo may be an ailing giant,

but hundreds of millions have used it to catch up on news,

business, weather or sport Some BT and Sky customers

still get their mail from Yahoo. It also owns the photo

sharing service Flickr In July the firm agreed to sell up

to communications giant Verizon but that deal

still hasn't been completed. Yahoo's Marissa Meyer is one

of the best paid bosses in She now now face some difficult

questions from Verizon. I think the very first question that

Verizon is going to be asking, just like many of the users

who were affected is for how long How long it took

for them to respond. And how long it took for them

to communicate to affected users. And then in addition to that,

what they are going to do to prevent this happening again in the future

because hackers will most Yahoo has struggled to survive

in the era of the mobile Internet. Now its reputation as a competent

and secure company has suffered serious damage from this

unprecedented data breach. The Treasury Minister, Lord O'Neill,

has left the Government. It's the first ministerial

resignation for Theresa May. He was appointed to George Osborne's

team last year with responsibility Lord O'Neill, a former chief

economist at Goldman Sachs, will now now sit as a cross bencher

in the Lords. A former taxi driver from Swindon

will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing Becky Godden

13 years ago. 52-year-old Christopher Halliwell

is already serving life for the murder of

another woman in 2011. The judge called Halliwell

"self-centred and calculating". Police say they believe

there were other victims. Jon Kay reports from Bristol Crown

Court. Dangerous and devious,

the judge's description He stabbed Sian O'Callaghan

to death five years ago, now he's finally been jailed

for strangling Becky Godden Halliwell was already serving

a minimum sentence of 25 years. Today that's been increased

to a whole-life term which means The 52-year-old said thank

you to the judge as he was led away. Callous, cold, calculating,

pathological liar. The senior officer on the case

told me he'd received several He believes there must be more

victims out there. He was a ground worker,

he was a chauffeur, he did airport runs,

he could have committed offences Karen Edwards told the judge that

losing her daughter had Becky was a sex worker and addicted

to heroin when she was murdered. Her dad said he was still angry

about what he called John Godden claims that

if guidelines had been followed when Halliwell was arrested,

Becky's case could have come She didn't deserve to get murdered,

and she deserved justice six The Wiltshire Police

are massively at fault. Former detective Steve Fulcher

was found guilty of gross misconduct over Halliwell's arrest and later

resigned, but today the judge said he believed the detective had

acted in good faith. Whole-life prison terms are reserved

for the most dangerous offenders. As Honeywell leaves here,

police are beginning to investigate new claims against him

and are reviewing unsolved crimes. heavy bombing hits

the Syrian city of Aleppo after Syria's government

announced a new offensive. Coming up in Sportsday on BBC News

in the next 15 minutes, Manchester City are on a high - the

men are top of the Premier League, the women can win the title

for the first time this weekend. The illegal trade in animals

poses the most immediate threat to some of our most popular

wildlife species, according to the head

of the Cites Convention. This international group

comes together every three years to try to save endangered species,

including elephants killed for their tusks,

rhinos slaughtered for their horns, and baby cheetahs seized

from the wild to be used as pets. Our science editor,

David Shukman, reports. Thin, dehydrated

and dangerously ill, these baby cheetahs

have just been rescued. They were being shipped

in terrible conditions This is a glimpse into

a shocking and illegal trade. are sold in the rich states

of the Gulf. Their owners boast about them

on social media, but the cubs usually die

within two years, and that's after the catastrophic

losses on the journey there. They're probably just thrown

into a crate, living in their own faeces,

travelled for days without proper food and end up,

many of them, dead on arrival. Cheetahs are the world's fastest

land animals, but the cubs are easy targets for poachers,

so the numbers are collapsing - To get a sense of

how many animals are at risk, we've created

this virtual data bank. Each species in trouble has its own

file, and the numbers are shocking. Look at this, more than 12,000

different kinds of animal Either their habitats

are being destroyed, or they're wanted as pets or for

some imaginary medicinal reason. So let's look at a few examples,

such as the big cats. The cheetahs we've been

hearing about, back in 1900, there were

an estimated 100,000 of them. Now the total is just under 7000.

But what about tigers? Well, a century ago,

there were about 100,000. in 1950, it's thought

there were about 400,000. Well, in 1975, the Cites Convention

was set up, an international agreement to clamp down

on the trade in endangered species. It has progressively tightened

controls on exports and imports, but the underground trade may be

worth up to ?15 billion a year. Ultimately, all this comes down

to whether national governments will act when so many thousands

of animals are in danger. So I asked the head

of the Cites Convention if it was failing to tackle

the illegal wildlife trade. You are dealing with

transnational organised crime. At international level, it means

you start talking to Interpol, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime,

World Customs Organisation, and that is exactly

what we have been doing, and so we're talking about

how we're going to scale that up. But a single cheetah

can fetch $10,000. A major conference over the next

fortnight will try to tighten up the rules

for all endangered species, but at a time

when demand remains high. A brief look at some of

the day's other other news stories. Terry Jones, one of the founding

members of Monty Python, has been diagnosed

with a form of dementia. He helped to create the group's

Flying Circus TV series and directed their films Life

Of Brian and The Meaning Of Life. the 74-year-old's ability

to communicate has been affected. A speeding driver who was being

chased by the police has pleaded guilty to causing the death

of a woman in Glasgow last year. Marie Laurie was on her way home

from her son's wedding when the taxi she was in was hit by

a car being driven by Steven Bennie. Amazon UK, the online

shopping company, has been fined ?65,000

at Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty of trying

to ship dangerous goods by air. Amazon said the items,

which included lithium-ion batteries and flammable aerosols,

were sent by mistake. When was the last time

you saw a dentist? New figures show that almost

half of all adults in England have not seen an NHS dentist

in the last two years. Well, our correspondent

Judith Moritz is at a dentist's

in Great Manchester. look at the number of people

who have been to see an NHS dentist. Organisations including

the British Dental Association have done the maths

and have calculated the number of people

who haven't had NHS checkups. These figures don't

cover the numbers So nearly half of adults in England

did not visit an NHS dental practice

during the last two years. Children are advised

to go to see the dentist more frequently than adults,

and it's been revealed that in the last year four out of ten

children haven't had NHS checkups. That equates to nearly

five million children. going to hospital to have teeth

extracted has also been going up. Four million tooth extractions

were carried out by NHS dentists in the last year, of which just

under a million were on children. The Royal College of Surgeons

has called the statistic alarming, saying that average five-year-olds

are eating their own weight in sugar each year, and adding that

tooth decay is the most common reason why children aged 5-9 years

old are admitted to hospital. The British Dental Association

has described the figures Public Health England says it wants

to renew its advice to parents to take children to the dentist's

frequently, to reduce their intake of sugary drinks, and make sure they

brush their teeth twice a day. Judith, thank you.

He's British, and he's one of the most influential

David Adjaye's latest design, the National Museum

of African-American History and Culture,

will be officially opened by President Obama tomorrow.

Our North America correspondent Nick Bryant

This is a building that not only occupies the last vacant plot

on some of America's most honoured land, the National Mall

of Washington, but seeks to fill a gap in America's national memory.

For decades, African-Americans have campaigned for a museum

that tells their epic story, and now it's about to be opened

by the country's first African-American President.

It's sort of changed my career - changed my life, actually...

The architect is British, David Adjaye,

And rather than designing a monument, he set out to construct

a living building that contributes to the ongoing racial debate

that reflects the ongoing struggle for equality.

I think this building helps to really allow people

to understand each other, and to understand how people

are interrelated in many ways, and how the path forward

is not separation but understanding and kind of coexisting.

So I think that this building comes at an opportune time in America

to really remind it of its incredible rich history

and its own contribution to that integration story.

Inside, the building chronicles an often traumatic

journey into freedom - the shackles and whips of slavery,

the clenched fists of the black power salute

of how black culture has come to define American culture.

These are all real, nothing here is a reconstruction,

so that really is Chuck Berry's kind of original Eldorado Cadillac.

for a British man to help tell an American story?

I try not to think about that, because if I did, I would collapse,

and I'd probably need therapy, because it's a very weighty subject,

but I think what I bring to it is a professionalism

about what I believe architecture can contribute

The building is steeped in symbolism - the form evokes an African crown,

the latticework recalls the ironwork of freed slaves

Windows look out over landmarks of the freedom struggle,

like the Lincoln Memorial, the pulpit from which

Dr Martin Luther King delivered his "I have a dream" speech.

This building is coming to completion as Barack Obama's

presidency is coming to completion, have you been struck by the irony?

It has been very beautiful, the irony, we started when he started

his presidency, and he was instrumental in helping, you know,

get the first tranche is of money through Congress and releasing that,

getting the project going. In a way,

it feels like a wonderful from slavery can come, you know,

a son of America who is of African descent who becomes President

of the most powerful nation in the world.

And the story goes on. This is not just the most important

public building to open in Washington in decades,

but also perhaps something of a bridge that can help straddle

America's racial divide. It's been a tense end

to the county cricket season, with three teams in with a chance

of taking the championship. It all depended on the match between

Middlesex and Yorkshire at Lord's. A win for either,

and they would take the title, Our sports correspondent

Joe Wilson is there. You know, Reeta, the County

Championship has been going since 1890, you might meet some people who

suggest it is irrelevant. Four day matches played during the working

week? Not very modern, but sometimes a sporting conclusion can be truly

exciting - if you have to wait for it.

The County Championship is a season, and what began with leaves in bud

persists at Lord's with the cold breath of autumn on the players'

necks and the final victory still up in the air. Middlesex versus

Yorkshire, if one of the teams could win this match, they would take the

title. Dawid Malan's century for Middlesex took hard work, but with

only hours left in the season, something had to be engineered.

Yorkshire bowled balls to be whacked and Middlesex sometimes hits them

straight back, a phoney war that created a target, Middlesex

declared, Yorkshire would bat again needing to wanted and 40. All the

efforts of the cricketers here as Lord's could be in vain because of

Somerset. They had a day off today, already won their final match. If

this match finished as age or, Somerset would-be champions for the

first time ever. Hard to know where to look. -- finished as a draw.

Watch the ball is what they always tell you. At Taunton, the Somerset

players gathered to watch on TV. Saving any drink except champagne.

As Lord's, Yorkshire saw boundaries, Middlesex wickets. David Willey is

an expert slugger, will he, won't he? 48-3. Tim Bresnan was key, he

made 55, gone. Yorkshire would keep swinging and hoping, but the game

was really up. Toby Roland-Jones taken two wickets in two balls, then

this. Oh, bowled him! Hat-trick, 170 81 out, at five goal the final day,

Middlesex were the champions - pretty boring, this type of cricket,

isn't it? That is the point, there are deep

discussions in domestic cricket about the way forward, how to make

it more accessible, too many players, too many clubs? Twenty20 is

the answer for many people, but maybe, Reeta, it is not the only

answer. Surely there is still space for the kind of drama and excitement

we saw here. Thanks very much, Joe Wilson there.

Let's take a look at the weather with Alex Deakin.

A disappointing result for Yorkshire in the cricket, but some lovely

weather in the county, and right away across England and Wales, as

the satellite Bruce, plenty of sunshine this fine Friday. Further

north and west, cloud streaming in off the Atlantic, and now rain has

arrived in western Scotland, and it will persist through tonight and

most of tomorrow, potentially causing problems, fringing into

Northern Ireland. For England and Wales, a dry and clear night with

warmer air, not as cold as it was last night. We start the day in

double digits. We start the day with quite a bit of sunshine across

England and Wales, and in the east it will stay that way. In the West,

significant winds, very wet in Northern Ireland and western

Scotland, rain continuing to cause problems as it mounts up, pushing

towards western fringes of England and Wales later in the day.

Temperatures rising in the southerly winds in the south and eased, 23 or

24 Celsius. Even where it is raining, 15 or 16 is above average.

Through tomorrow evening, the rain staggers into western parts of

England and Wales, creeping across the Midlands and into eastern

England. The switch in wind direction will be crucial for

Sunday, still some rain across eastern England for a time on

Sunday, but then we have got sunny spells and quite a few showers, and

that change of wind direction brings a change to the temperatures, a much

fresher feel on Sunday. Saturday is wet and windy in western areas, in

the east there will be plenty of warm sunshine on Saturday. And then

on Sunday, cooler for all of us, with sunshine and showers. Reeta.

Thank you, Alex, a reminder of our main story: every bombing hits the

Syrian city of Aleppo after the Syrian government announced a new

offensive. That's all from the BBC News at Six,

so it's goodbye from me,- and on BBC One we now join

the BBC's news teams where you are.