21/12/2017 BBC News at Six

Tonight at Six - The sacking

of the deputy prime minister -

anger among some conservative MPs

about the role of police

officers in the affair.

-- former police officers.

Damian Green admits making

misleading statements

about pornography allegations -

but now Theresa May joins

MPs concerns and calls

for an investigation.

I share the concerns that have been

raised across the political

spectrum about comments that

were made by a former police officer

and I expect that issue to be

properly investigated.

We'll be asking where this

leaves the PM's authority.

Also tonight:

The plight of Yemen's children -

it's the worst humanitarian

crisis in the world -

we have a special report.

The British citizen jailed in Iran -

cautious optimism after

the government there says she's now

eligible for early release.

Apple admits it deliberately slows

down older iphones -

but they says it's not to make

you buy a new one.

# We're gonna rise up!

# Time to take a shot!

# We're gonna rise up!

# Time to take a shot!

It took Broadway by storm -

now the hip-hop musical Hamilton

is already sold out over here -

we talk to the musical director.

We will have Sportsday on the BBC

News channel with all of the latest

reports, results, interviews, and

features from the BBC sports Centre.

Good evening and welcome

to the BBC News at Six.

Theresa May has joined several Tory

MPs who've been questioning

the conduct of the retired police

officers involved in pornography

allegations against her

deputy, Damian Green.

They revealed that pornographic

images had been found on his Commons

computer nine years ago.

Last night the prime minister sacked

Mr Green after he admitted making

misleading statements

about the affair -

though he denies viewing

or downloading the images.

As John Pienaar reports the loss

of Damian Green adds yet another

challenge to what's been a year

of political turmoil

for the prime minister.

Sacked, not for a crime, but for a

cover-up. Have you let the Prime

Minister down, Mr Green? He still

denies behaving inappropriately

towards a young journalist. Denies

viewing pornography in the office

years before. But when he denied not

knowing anything about -- but when

he denied knowing anything about the

pornography that was the end.

Theresa May believes in duty, even

if it means sacking her most trusted

friend and Cabinet, even if some MPs

believe that former policeman who

found the pornography betrayed their

duty by going public. And if they

did she says they should answer for

it.

I have shared the concerns that

have been raised across the

political spectrum about comments

that were made by a former police

officer. I expect that issue to be

properly investigated, to be taken

seriously, and to be properly looked

at.

But Damian Green's fate is settled.

Today he tweeted good wishes to

sympathisers and he said:

This was the fateful moment caught

on camera nine years ago, police

investigating Home Office leaks,

raiding Mr Green's office. The raid

was criticised but officers found

pornography. When that came out Mr

Green called it a lie, a smear. The

command at the time, Bob quick, is

demanding a retraction, consulting

his lawyers, but London's police

chief has now given the disclosures

to the information Commissioner.

We are disappointed to see that it

appears that former colleagues have

put into the public domain, by the

media, material they had access to

as part of a confidential

investigation.

Tory MPs generally

accept Damian Green had to go like

it or not. And some do not like the

way former police officers paid.

They should be investigating for

this. -- officers behaved. It is

wrong. How can any of us trust

giving information to the police if

senior officers leapt in this way?

David Davis warned Downing Street

three weeks ago not to punish Damian

Green on former officers with a

grudge but he has accepted the

sacking as well. The other

allegations, a young journalist,

Kate Maltby, complained about

inappropriate behaviour. The enquiry

could not reach a verdict, however.

On goes Theresa May come her old

friend and colleague missing from

the picture, she needs allies at

home and in Europe and she has lost

the closest one at all. -- on goes

Theresa May, her old friend and

colleague.

John joins me now from Westminster.

We seem to be going from one crisis

to the other, where does this one

leaf Theresa May? No prior Minister

Camp Nou such a close colleague

without feeling a loss. Damian Green

will be missed badly by Theresa May.

Problems ahead, no majority in the

Commons, Brexit to deal with, a

cabinet with differing ideas on

post-Brexit Britain around the

Cabinet table. Finding a replacement

with the same authority and loyalty.

With no ambition for the top job.

With the ability to reach across

differences of opinion. That would

be easy and it may turn out to be

impossible. Theresa May will hope to

move on from this. Not just the loss

of Damian Green but the whole story

about misconduct at Westminster. And

tonight we have learned that a

junior minister has been cleared of

misconduct. He was accused of using

inappropriate language towards a

Parliamentary Secretary and at one

point, asking her to go and buy six

toys. He has apologised. The

pressure for higher standards at

Westminster, that will not stop. But

big problem still lie ahead. -- sex

toys.

Thanks very much.

The International Red Cross says

the total number of suspected

cholera cases in Yemen has

reached one million.

This is yet more evidence

of the humanitarian crisis

in a country caught up in a brutal

war, where more than eighty per cent

of the population lack food,

clean water and access

to health care.

Our correspondent Nawal Al-Maghafi

has been to the capital Sanaa -

and sent this report -

parts of which you may

find distressing.

CRYING.

This is 11-month-old

Abdillahi, exhausted

and beyond despair, he's just one

of Yemen's starving children.

With his belly swollen

from malnutrition, there are 400,000

other infants suffering

just like him.

Once confined to rural areas,

the threat of famine has now

reached the capital.

Abdillahi's mother Jamilla sits

helpless at his side,

she's already lost two other

children to hunger.

She tells me, he's all

she has to live for.

TRANSLATION:

My husband's salary

used to provide for us,

it would run out at the end

of the month, but he would get paid.

Everything was OK.

Now, all we eat is bread and tea.

All the infants here

were born into this war,

now in its third year.

From birth, it's

a struggle to survive.

Eight-year-old Allah has just

arrived and he's just been

given his first proper meal in days.

He's from a family with a well-paid

government job, but for over a year

anyone working for the state hasn't

received a salary.

So the family quickly

fell into poverty.

Too ashamed to ask their own family

for help, they struggled in silence.

TRANSLATION:

I break one piece

of bread between two children

and another is shared out

between the rest.

That's all we have.

At night they ask for dinner,

they cry, but I can't give them

anything, so they sleep hungry.

It's really heartbreaking.

In Yemeni culture it's shameful

to go out and ask for help and I'm

shocked that Jamilla waited

until her son was in this state

before she asked her sister

for money to bring him here.

It makes me wonder how many more

people are starving in their homes.

And here's the incredible thing,

whilst millions of people

are starving across the country,

supermarket shelves in the capital

are stocked high with food,

but ordinary Yemenis can no longer

afford to shop here.

A once busy store, now empty.

Much of the problem lies here,

the Saudi-led coalition has blocked

all commercial imports from entering

Yemen's main ports, which has

driven up the prices,

and the Houthi rebels are impeding

the distribution of what little

aid is being delivered.

The UN says Yemen is the world's

biggest humanitarian crisis,

but according to its resident

co-ordinator the international

community is failing Yemen.

There is a glaring lack

of pressure beyond the words.

There's been words coming out

of the US, there is words coming out

of Europe and words coming out

of the UK and everywhere else,

but it's not translating

into a pushback on this action

and the only solution is political.

So the political people have to get

around this table and take a real

full-hearted approach

at fixing this.

With a lack of international

diplomacy and the war at a stalemate

those at the brunt of the suffering

are the vulnerable.

Nawal Al-Maghafi, BBC News, Sanaa.

Lawyers for the British-Iranian

woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe -

who's in jail in Iran -

say she's been told by the Iranian

authorities that she's now

eligible for early release.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held

for 18 months on charges of working

against the Iranian regime.

Our correspondent Caroline

Hawley is with me now.

What does this state of -- change of

status mean?

You can be eligible for early

release. I've just spoken to her

husband, Richard, who has been

campaigning for her release. He says

everything is going in the right

direction. He said the tide turned

when Boris Johnson went to Iran

earlier this month. He pushed for

the release. He was heavily

criticised for complicating her case

when he said she was training

journalist when in fact she had been

there on holiday with her daughter.

Since his visit there have been a

number of positive signals. More

phone calls from Mrs

Zaghari-Ratcliffe to her husband and

more family visits. And apparently

her lawyer checked on the computer

system of the Arabian judiciary and

found out she was eligible for early

release and he was excited and he

told Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe about

this. -- Iranians judiciary. There

have been lots of ups and downs in

this case. The family are more

positive. But they won't celebrate

until she was on a plane -- is on a

plane home.

The retailer, Toys R Us,

has agreed a deal to stop

the whole group closing down.

Creditors have agreed

to a restructuring plan

which will secure 2,500 jobs.

But a further 800 jobs are set to be

lost and there'll be

some store closures.

The people of Catalonia in northeast

Spain have been voting

in regional elections to choose

a new parliament.

The central government in Madrid

dissolved the previous

administration after it organised

an illegal referendum in October

and declared independence.

Our correspondent, James Reynolds,

is live in Barcelona for us.

How likely is this to end the

political crisis?

Not many people here think it will

end, simply because the divisions

are too deep to vanish with a single

vote. But I think this election will

answer an important question, which

side has greater numbers,

pro-independent or pro-Spain?

After months of crisis,

the people of Catalonia,

all of them, got to vote.

No one, it seems,

wanted to miss out.

In October's disputed independence

referendum this polling station

was a scene of chaos,

the Spanish police used force

to confiscate ballot boxes.

By contrast, this election

is organised and orderly, everyone

is getting the chance to vote.

For some, this is

a chance to get even.

Spanish police violence

in October has turned Marta

into a pro-independence voter.

TRANSLATION:

I want them to listen

to us out there in the world.

For them to listen to us

in Spain, in Europe.

For them to know that the Catalan

people and Catalan sentiment exists

and that we've been forgotten.

We've been treated like nobodies.

In Barcelona's old city,

families queued to vote.

These three sisters split

two to one in favour

of pro-independence parties.

"We haven't tried to convince one

another", Amena admitted.

Retired maintenance man Jordi wants

Catalonia to become a republic.

Raquel said that she was voting

for freedom from Spain.

Marta says she wants deposed

pro-independence leader

Carles Puigdemont to return.

But in working-class districts,

many voters take the opposite view.

TRANSLATION:

If they want

independence, they should look

for an island and go there,

there is Spain.

Catalonia is Spain.

TRANSLATION:

I want to see

a government that is

anti-independence because I believe

that if the others win our

economy will get worse.

This election may reveal

Catalonia's divisions,

but it won't bring them to an end.

James Reynolds, BBC News, Barcelona.

The time is coming up to quarter

past six.

Our top story this evening...

Damian Green admits making

misleading statements

about pornography allegations

but now Theresa May joins

MPs' concerns and calls

for an investigation.

And still to come...

The host of the 2022 Commonwealth

Games will be Birmingham!

Celebrations in the Midlands -

we'll hear from the bid team

on what they're calling an early

Christmas present.

Coming up in the next 15

minutes on Sportsday...

Swansea's search for a new manager

won't include Ryan Giggs -

the Manchester United legend has

ruled himself out of the running.

Now, homelessness blights the lives

of tens of thousands of people

in Britain and only yesterday MPs

called it a national crisis.

Some of those affected so called

'sofa surfers' who move from friend

to friend to keep off the streets

don't even register

in the official statistics.

So BBC News has commissioned

a poll to discover

the scale of the problem,

particularly among young people.

It found that almost one in ten 16

to 25-year-olds questioned sofa

surfed for over a month

and

that more than a quarter have

done it for over a week.

Our Social Affairs Correspondent

Michael Buchanan has this special

report on Britain's

young hidden homeless.

Time passes slowly if you are

homeless. For some, most days are

spent waiting and hoping, waiting

for the phone to ring, hoping they

will have a bed tonight.

Is there

anything else we could look at

possibly? All right, thank you.

Sun

's local council paid for a room for

a few nights as temperatures fell

below zero, but with nights becoming

warmer his prospects have called.

I'm ringing up regarding the room.

With the council withdrawing

support, the 23-year-old who has

spent time in prison and suffers

from mental health problems

desperately searches for somewhere

to sleep.

Don't know whether I'm

coming or going, I don't know where

I will sleep from night tonight. I

might find somewhere I can stay for

a few days, then after that it's

doing it all again.

Unlike some, Ian

knows he has a roof over his head

tonight and, thanks to this charity,

food in his cupboards. Three weeks

in a friend's flat means sofa

surfing is over for now. His next

task is to get a job but it won't be

easy.

Looking for a job with no

address is really difficult. Not

only that, with sofa surfing it is

difficult to keep your hygiene up,

looking smart, it is difficult.

Sofa

surfing mainly affects young men and

as a poll suggests falling out with

parents is the main reason.

Our main

drive is to get people back in touch

with their families, that would be

our first port of call to go back to

parents and say it's not that easy,

they won't get a flat straightaway,

your child could be left on the

streets and negotiate with them.

Moving back in with his mother was

never an option for 20-year-old

Dale.

Living in close quarters, our

relationship gradually got worse and

had a snowball effect, gradually

getting worse and worse until

Christmas Day on 2014 when we had a

massive argument, she kicked me out

and I became homeless.

He normally

would have gone to his Gran's, but

she had gone to a home, suffering

dementia, so he relied on friends

from school.

It's extremely

stressful because nobody really

enjoy his A-levels, I didn't anyway,

and it's really hard to balance

personal life and work life. It's

hard to focus on revision and

schoolwork when you don't know where

you will be sleeping at night.

Did

you sometimes go into school that

morning knowing you wouldn't have

anywhere to sleep at night?

That was

often the case, yes.

Dale prevailed,

he's now renting a flat in his

second year at university. As we

left, Sam was facing a night on the

streets but hours later a friend

called to offer his sofa. Relief

tonight but tomorrow the search for

shelter begins again. Michael

Buchanan, BBC News.

It's something people

with older Apple smartphones

have long suspected -

their devices slow down with age.

Now Apple has confirmed that

it's done deliberately

on its older iPhone models.

But why do they do it?

Here's our technology

correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones.

Is this about selling more iPhones?

That's what a lot of people have

always suspected, planned

obsolescence. Apple says that's not

the case, it's about managing the

performance of all iPhones, where

their lithium batteries get

gradually less effective. In cold

weather their phones can shut down

without warning so what they are

doing through a software update is

gradually lowering the performance

of the phone, putting less strain on

it so the battery is less effective

than doesn't shut down. It seems a

good enough explanation but a lot of

people are not impressed it has

taken Apple more than a year to come

clean about this.

Thank you.

Official photographs

of Prince Harry and his American

bride-to-be, Meghan Markle, have

been released by Kensington Palace

to mark their engagement.

An intimate black and white portrait

of the couple and a more formal

image of them holding hands

were taken by fashion

and celebrity photographer

Alexi Lubomirski earlier this week

at Frogmore House in Windsor.

Birmingham has been confirmed as

host of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The city's bid was the only one

submitted by the September deadline.

With an estimated

budget of £750 million,

it will be the most expensive sports

event in Britain since

the London 2012 Olympics.

Our Sports Editor Dan Roan reports.

The host of the 2022 Commonwealth

Games will be... Birmingham.

It may

not have been sport's best kept

secret but whispers the moment they

had been waiting for, an Assembly to

remember for local schoolchildren

this morning with official

confirmation their city would be

staging its first global sports

event. The man in charge of the

movement told me they had found an

ideal host.

I think Birmingham will

bring diversity, it will bring a

journey over the next four years of

working with the host city to run

the game is right, run it for the

people, by the people.

Birmingham

beat Liverpool to be the candidate

after original choice Durban was

stripped of the choice for financial

difficulties but no other rivals

emerged. Come 2022, this stadium

will host the finest athletes. For

people like Heather painting, it is

added motivation. -- Paton.

To

compete here in 2022 is a massive

goal of mine.

Organisers insist the

games will transform venues like

this and help regenerate this part

of Birmingham with the athletes'

village creating 1000 homes. 11 days

of sporting action will cost three

quarters of £1 billion to stage, the

most expensive sport events to be

held in Britain since London 2012,

and a quarter of that total has to

be raised by local authorities. The

huge cost overruns at London's

Olympic Stadium have cast a shadow

over the record, and hotel tax with

visitors paying a small fee is now

being considered.

Opinion is very

mixed about it, some people are

excited about the event coming, it's

good news for Birmingham, others are

worried about the effect on council

services which are not at a great

standard at the moment, and also

concerned about the disruption in

the local community.

How will you go

about making sure it represents good

value?

We are very confident today

that with their support, they are

saying this is good value for money

for the British taxpayer because we

are expecting to get the investment

back and more.

The success of

Glasgow's Commonwealth Games helps

secure written's reputation as a

sporting host, now it is

Birmingham's turn, and to prove its

worth it.

It was a smash hit on Broadway now

the hip-hop musical about one

of the men who helped to create

America as an independent nation

opens in London tonight.

'Hamilton' is the story of a poor

immigrant from the Caribbean,

who arrives in New York on the eve

of the American Revolution,

and goes on to become the country's

first Treasury Secretary.

Our Arts Editor Will Gompertz met

the musical's creator,

Lin-Manuel Miranda.

# Put a pencil to his temple,

connected it to his brain...#

Here is Hamilton's creator,

Lin-Manuel Miranda,

at the White House poetry slam

in 2009, performing

what would become

the opening number of his musical

about America's founding fathers.

Six years later it opened

in New York and became

an instant classic.

# What's your name, man?

# Alexander Hamilton

# His name is Alexander Hamilton

And now it's in London, as is a few

days the man behind the show,

And now it's in London,

as is for a few days

the man behind the show,

who's been compared to...

Well... Are you the 21st-century

Shakespeare?

Not even close!

No, Shakespeare wrote a

mind altering amount of dramas

and comedies and sonnets,

worked with other playwrights.

I've written two musicals,

so let's everybody chill out.

# I'm past patiently waiting!

# I'm passionately

smashin' every expectation

I recognised in the story

of Hamilton the story of so many

immigrants who are coming

to the United States today.

And so I used the music that

I love to tell the story.

A lot has been made

of a multiracial cast.

This is a story of America then

told by America now.

We're going to use every tool

at our disposal to eliminate

the distance between a modern

audience and something that happened

200 somewhat years ago.

The casting is part of that,

and casting it to look

like the way our country

looks eliminates distance.

When George Washington is a young

man of colour and he's

running for his life,

suddenly you're not filled

with images of Washington standing

like this, crossing the Delaware,

he's not invincible any more.

It's suddenly these are real people.

How nervous were you about bringing

this show to the UK?

I was not nervous at all.

What I was very excited

for was the reaction to King George

III in the shadow

of Buckingham Palace.

I mean we're really right up

the street, so the only change

made in that direction is we have

tarted up his outfit quite a bit.

George III might have lost America

but he steals this show every night.

Maybe the family in the big house

he bought around the corner

will make a royal appointment

to see it.

Will Gompertz, BBC News.

Time for a look at the weather.

Here's Sarah Keith Lucas.

The sun has set on the winter

solstice so we've had the shortest

day of the year. It was a mild and

cloudy day with brighter spells.

This is how the sunset in Lyme Regis

in Dorset. As we had through the

next couple of days, that theme is

going to continue, still mild,

cloudy and breezy too. We have a

weather front draped across Central

parts of the country through this

evening and overnight, bringing rain

across Northern Ireland and northern

England. Through tonight as that

eases southwards and eastwards, wet

weather across Wales and the

south-west of England as well. With

the clearer skies we could see a

touch of frost across Scotland but

frost free elsewhere with a lot of

low cloud, drizzle and hill fog.

That sums up the weather tomorrow, a

cloudy sort of day with hill fog

across northern and western parts of

the country. Further east, glimmers

of brightness.

the country. Further east, glimmers

of Perhaps some brightness sunshine

coming through. Moving into the

weekend, and a quick look ahead

towards Christmas, we are keeping

high pressure in charge towards the

south but further north this frontal

system becomes more of a player

through Christmas Eve and Christmas

Day. During Saturday it will produce

some wet weather across the north

and west of Scotland. Quite breezy

here too. Elsewhere pretty cloudy

and grey, the best of brightness