:00:00. > :00:08.This is BBC World News Today with me Zeinab Badawi.
:00:09. > :00:11.A dramatic and emotional day in court as the South African athlete
:00:12. > :00:17.Oscar Pistorius takes the stand for the first time in his murder trial.
:00:18. > :00:20.He apologised to the family of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, who
:00:21. > :00:33.he's admitted killing, and gave much of his evidence in tears. There has
:00:34. > :00:41.not been a moment since this tragedy happened that have not thought about
:00:42. > :00:46.family. Pro-Russian protesters step up their hold on Government
:00:47. > :00:48.buildings. Kiev responds by exploiting -- deploying security
:00:49. > :00:51.services. And it's the first day in the
:00:52. > :00:55.five-day process that is India's general election: more than 800
:00:56. > :00:58.million people have a vote. Also coming up: A remarkable
:00:59. > :01:02.reconciliation - we'll hear from a victim and a convicted attacker, 20
:01:03. > :01:09.years since the start of the Rwandan genocide.
:01:10. > :01:17."I'm a Yankee doodle dandy, Yankee doodle do or die."
:01:18. > :01:21.The curtain comes down on one of Hollywood's greats, Mickey Rooney
:01:22. > :01:36.dies at the age of 93. Hello and welcome.
:01:37. > :01:39.It was an emotional start to the testimony given by the South African
:01:40. > :01:41.athlete, Oscar Pistorius, who's on trial for the murder of his
:01:42. > :01:47.girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp last year. As he stood in court he turned
:01:48. > :01:50.to the public gallery instead of addressing the judge and made a
:01:51. > :01:54.tearful apology directly to Reeva's mother June. He sobbed as he told
:01:55. > :01:58.the court in Pretoria that there hadn't been a moment since he shot
:01:59. > :02:03.dead his girlfriend that he hadn't thought about her family. He says he
:02:04. > :02:10.mistook her for an intruder. Andrew Harding reports.
:02:11. > :02:13.Finally, it is his turn to talk. Oscar Pistorius makes his way from
:02:14. > :02:19.the dock this morning, heading to the witness box. Past his own toilet
:02:20. > :02:25.door, the one he shot through, now an exhibit in the courtroom. We then
:02:26. > :02:30.lose sight of him, only his voice is allowed to be broadcast as he turns
:02:31. > :02:36.to the public and launches into an emotional speech to the family of
:02:37. > :02:43.the woman he killed. I would like to apologise and say there is not a
:02:44. > :02:49.moment and has not been a moment since this tragedy happened that I
:02:50. > :02:52.have not thought about the family. I wake up every morning and you are
:02:53. > :03:04.the first people I think of, the first people I pray for. I can't
:03:05. > :03:08.imagine the pain and sorrow. I was simply trying to protect
:03:09. > :03:15.Her, I can promise that when she went to bed that night she felt
:03:16. > :03:23.loved. Reva's mother showed no emotion. The Oscar stories family,
:03:24. > :03:30.quite the opposite. At one point, the athlete sops, he is comforted by
:03:31. > :03:37.another aunt. Then Pistorius described his own state. I have
:03:38. > :03:47.terrible nightmares about the things that happened that night. I can
:03:48. > :03:55.smell the blood and I wake up being terrified. The state has sought to
:03:56. > :04:00.shown that Oscar Pistorius as reckless. Today, he stressed his own
:04:01. > :04:07.vulnerability. Disabled and fearful of crime. When I grew up, we were
:04:08. > :04:15.exposed to crime. Housebreaking is with family members being
:04:16. > :04:19.assaulted. -- housebreakings. He was allowed to finish early after his
:04:20. > :04:24.lawyer pleaded that he had not slept last night. The core of his evidence
:04:25. > :04:30.is expected tomorrow. Let's get the latest.
:04:31. > :04:36.It was a day of great expectation when Oscar Pistorius started his
:04:37. > :04:42.testimony. It certainly was. There had been no
:04:43. > :04:45.certainty about when he was due to testify after the first witness, a
:04:46. > :04:51.pathologist for the fans, started to take the stand this morning. Three
:04:52. > :04:57.hours in, suddenly that evidence wound up Oscar Pistorius got up and
:04:58. > :05:04.took the stand, walking over to the witness box. It was an hour before
:05:05. > :05:11.lunch, and that our was extremely old -- emotional for Oscar
:05:12. > :05:15.Pistorius. Starting with an apology and then going into early details of
:05:16. > :05:19.his life. He began to calm down as he went through his early childhood
:05:20. > :05:23.and talk less about Reeva Steenkamp. He then returned after lunch and
:05:24. > :05:27.spent an hour or so of further evidence talking about more details
:05:28. > :05:35.being questioned very gently by his defence counsel before he told the
:05:36. > :05:40.judge that Oscar Pistorius was exhausted. Oscar Pistorius himself
:05:41. > :05:42.said he had not slept at all last night and his defence counsel asked
:05:43. > :05:52.for the day of evidence to be adjourned.
:05:53. > :06:06.He will obviously have an easier time with his defence counsel. Yes.
:06:07. > :06:10.His defence counsel who we have seen being very aggressive, today with
:06:11. > :06:15.defence witnesses was trying to coax the information out that presents
:06:16. > :06:18.their best case. He wanted to portray Oscar Pistorius has a
:06:19. > :06:23.vulnerable but brave young man who triumphed over his disability to
:06:24. > :06:27.them overcome adversity. Also a young man who had had a fear of
:06:28. > :06:34.crime, a just viable fear, being a victim of crime and seeing members
:06:35. > :06:41.of his family being victims. Also a sense that Oscar Pistorius wanted to
:06:42. > :06:46.be self-sufficient. He talked about Oscar Pistorius at school trying to
:06:47. > :06:50.give a sense of him looking after himself and taking the lead in his
:06:51. > :06:56.own defence. Possibly playing into the picture of a man who fear
:06:57. > :07:00.crime, perhaps paranoid about it, because of his vulnerability. At the
:07:01. > :07:05.same time, he was taking matters into his own hands. This whole very
:07:06. > :07:10.gentle questioning from Barry, the defence counsel, will come to an end
:07:11. > :07:14.eventually and then we will see the state prosecutor, the fearsome state
:07:15. > :07:20.prosecutor Tom some refer to as the pit bull, getting hold of Oscar
:07:21. > :07:26.Pistorius and trying to present a different version of Oscar stories.
:07:27. > :07:41.And also pick apart Oscar Pistorius's statement of events.
:07:42. > :07:44.In Ukraine, security officials are being sent to the eastern cities of
:07:45. > :07:46.Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv following the occupation of several
:07:47. > :07:49.Government buildings by pro-Russian groups. In Donetsk, the people who
:07:50. > :07:56.seized the regional administration building have announced the creation
:07:57. > :07:59.of a sovereign "people's republic". They've also called for a referendum
:08:00. > :08:09.and asked Moscow to send in a peacekeeping force.
:08:10. > :08:22.Tell us what the state of affairs is. Tonight, pro-Russian
:08:23. > :08:27.protesters, activists, can truly to control. -- continued to control.
:08:28. > :08:30.They also control the local headquarters of the Ukrainian
:08:31. > :08:37.security services just across town. As you mentioned, earlier today they
:08:38. > :08:46.proclaimed the people's Republic of Donetsk. They have also called
:08:47. > :08:50.President Putin -- called on President Putin to sending
:08:51. > :08:55.peacekeeping groups. They have demanded a referendum by May the
:08:56. > :08:59.11th and judging by all of the Russian flags that were flying at
:09:00. > :09:02.the administration building and the Russian and Soviet era songs that
:09:03. > :09:06.were blaring out of the loudspeakers, it is clear that a lot
:09:07. > :09:15.of people in that crowd, 1000 people on the square, once Donetsk and
:09:16. > :09:24.other regions to break away from Ukraine and to join Russia. We know
:09:25. > :09:26.that Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry have been
:09:27. > :09:31.holding talks and John Kerry apparently has said that he is quite
:09:32. > :09:34.concerned about what is going on. What do you think the possibility of
:09:35. > :09:40.any kind of Russian military intervention might be in that part
:09:41. > :09:44.of Ukraine? That of course is a major concern,
:09:45. > :09:50.it is a concern not only to John Kerry in the United States, but to
:09:51. > :09:53.Europe, too. Authorities in Kiev who continue to maintain that there is a
:09:54. > :10:02.real possibility that Russia could send in troops across the border
:10:03. > :10:06.into the eastern Ukrainian regions. As far as Moscow is concerned,
:10:07. > :10:12.Russia has continued to say that they have no plans to do that and
:10:13. > :10:17.the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Ukraine should
:10:18. > :10:22.stop blaming Russia causing trouble. And that they should find solutions
:10:23. > :10:31.to its own problems. Thank you.
:10:32. > :10:37.An Australian vessel searching for the missing Malaysian airline ship
:10:38. > :10:40.has detected signals consistent with those from a black box flight
:10:41. > :10:45.recorder. It's being described as the most promising lead of the
:10:46. > :10:49.search so far. Here in the UK a British businessman
:10:50. > :10:52.accused of hiring hit-men to murder his new wife on their honeymoon in
:10:53. > :10:55.South Africa is being extradited today. It follows three years of
:10:56. > :10:58.legal challenges. Shrien Dewani has always denied ordering the
:10:59. > :11:06.carjacking in Cape Town, in November 2010.
:11:07. > :11:10.Peaches Geldof has died at the age of 25. The circumstances of her
:11:11. > :11:15.death in Kent in southern England are unclear. Police say it is being
:11:16. > :11:21.-- treated as sudden and unexplained. Peaches Geldof is the
:11:22. > :11:27.daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates.
:11:28. > :11:38.A roadside bomb in Afghanistan has killed at least 13 people. The
:11:39. > :11:41.explosion in Kandahar province hit two vehicles carrying civilians.
:11:42. > :11:44.They were travelling on a side road after the main road was blocked
:11:45. > :11:46.after an earlier suicide bombing. The bombing comes two days after
:11:47. > :11:49.Afghanistan's presidential election that represents the first democratic
:11:50. > :11:52.transfer of power in the country's history. Early unofficial results
:11:53. > :11:56.from the vote suggest that two of the candidates are so far ahead of
:11:57. > :12:00.the six others that later results or even ballot rigging would not affect
:12:01. > :12:03.the result. With 10% of the votes counted, the former finance
:12:04. > :12:07.minister, Ashraf Ghani, said he had 50%, and the former Foreign
:12:08. > :12:10.Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, 35%. All sides have complained of fraud,
:12:11. > :12:19.and candidates have until midnight to lodge objections. Vali Nasr is
:12:20. > :12:21.the Dean of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He
:12:22. > :12:29.was formerly senior adviser to the US special representative for
:12:30. > :12:35.Afghanistan and Pakistan. First of all, the fact of the matter
:12:36. > :12:41.is that the preferred candidate seems to be trailing, the preferred
:12:42. > :12:47.candidate of Hamid Karzai. Does that sound about right? These are
:12:48. > :12:53.preliminary results, we do not know how the voting in far-flung areas
:12:54. > :13:02.have gone. But right now it is correct. Ashraf Ghani, the front
:13:03. > :13:06.runner, was also quite close to President Hamid Karzai and there was
:13:07. > :13:10.also the suspicion that he President Hamid Karzai was supporting more
:13:11. > :13:14.than one candidate. He may get the candidate that he really wanted and
:13:15. > :13:18.the one that he pretended to want and is happy distant third and that
:13:19. > :13:24.gives legitimacy to the outcome he was looking for. I see. Ashraf Ghani
:13:25. > :13:29.and Abdullah Abdullah both veterans on the political scene in
:13:30. > :13:36.Afghanistan. Do you suppose that they are in a way the candidates of
:13:37. > :13:40.continuity? More so Abdullah Abdullah than Ashraf Ghani. Ashraf
:13:41. > :13:45.Ghani is a technocrat, his style is familiar to the West and very much
:13:46. > :13:51.appreciated. He is a doing person, he wants to get things done, build
:13:52. > :13:55.institutions. He worked at the World Bank. He is not the wheeler dealer
:13:56. > :13:59.that Afghanistan is used to. It remains to be seen if he can manage
:14:00. > :14:04.the political process with his style. Both have said that they
:14:05. > :14:10.would sign the military cooperation agreement. That is with the United
:14:11. > :14:17.States. That is something presumably that people in the United States
:14:18. > :14:20.would welcome? Yes, of course. That was their rhetoric during the
:14:21. > :14:26.campaign. Now we will see whether they have the strength to do so. If
:14:27. > :14:30.they do so, whether there may be a backlash against that decision. This
:14:31. > :14:35.became such a hot political issue, it is not as easy for a new
:14:36. > :14:41.president is to come in and nearly proceed with signing the accord. I
:14:42. > :14:45.think it is still a sensitive issue and we will have to see if the rest
:14:46. > :14:51.-- rhetoric of the campaign will translate into action. Briefly, I
:14:52. > :14:59.you pleased with how the election has gone? -- RU. The voting part
:15:00. > :15:04.went well. We will have two see if the results stand up. It is not good
:15:05. > :15:08.for Afghanistan if large cached in areas did not vote with the same
:15:09. > :15:18.level of turnout as couple and the North. -- PAshtun. Those other
:15:19. > :15:25.things we to watch. If they go smoothly, this will have been a
:15:26. > :15:28.spectacular election. Thank you. The world's biggest election is
:15:29. > :15:31.underway in India. It will take a month for more than 800 million
:15:32. > :15:34.voters to cast their ballot. And opinion polls indicate that the
:15:35. > :15:38.governing Congress Party is facing a stiff challenge if not defeat by the
:15:39. > :15:43.nationalist Hindu BJP, led by Narendra Modi. The election involves
:15:44. > :15:50.930,000 polling stations around the country and will be held over nine
:15:51. > :15:54.phases, ending on May the 12th. One of the first regions to vote is the
:15:55. > :15:59.north-eastern state of Assam, from where our correspondent Sanjoy
:16:00. > :16:05.Majumder reports. They queued up from the early hours
:16:06. > :16:11.of the morning at this polling station set up in a girls school.
:16:12. > :16:17.Woman almost outnumbered men. Standing patiently for hours in 30
:16:18. > :16:23.degrees heat. Once inside, a quick identity check after which their
:16:24. > :16:28.fingers are marked with indelible ink to make sure no one votes twice
:16:29. > :16:32.before they can make their choice. It's been a solid start on day one
:16:33. > :16:37.of the voting. A pretty good turnout, and that is always a sign
:16:38. > :16:42.that voters want to send politicians strong message. Assam has not really
:16:43. > :16:45.kept pace with the rest of India when it comes to development. There
:16:46. > :16:54.is a sense here that they have been left out, sense of frustration, even
:16:55. > :16:57.of alienation. This is tea growing country, the plantations dotting
:16:58. > :17:02.this country were set up by the British in the mid-19th century to
:17:03. > :17:04.produce the world-famous Assante. But while the industry has
:17:05. > :17:12.prospered, the tea growers have not. This is three generations of
:17:13. > :17:18.this family. Father, son, and grandson will all vote in these
:17:19. > :17:20.polls. The live right by the plantation in conditions that have
:17:21. > :17:24.seen little improvement over the years. The tin shacks that serve as
:17:25. > :17:29.their homes offer no protection against the heat. There is no
:17:30. > :17:36.electricity or proper health care. TRANSLATION: The British were here,
:17:37. > :17:39.I've been working here since then. They left. I voted in the first
:17:40. > :17:45.elections and have voted in all elections since then.
:17:46. > :17:49.We are not asking for much, all we want is someone who will improve
:17:50. > :17:53.things for us. We work so hard but our wages are so low. The tea
:17:54. > :17:58.industry is making profits, but we get no share of its.
:17:59. > :18:04.I'm voting for the first time, so I'm really excited. Our lives you
:18:05. > :18:08.are pathetic. There is no future for media. I want to vote for someone
:18:09. > :18:13.who will give me an opportunity to move out from here and begin a new
:18:14. > :18:19.life for me. Now it is decision time for Assam
:18:20. > :18:29.and the rest of India. Five weeks from now we will know who they have
:18:30. > :18:32.backed. Today Rwanda began its official week
:18:33. > :18:36.of mourning to remember the 20% of its population - mostly Tutsis - who
:18:37. > :18:39.perished in the genocide 20 years ago. 800,000 people were brutally
:18:40. > :18:42.killed in just 100 days. President Paul Kagame said at a ceremony
:18:43. > :18:46.attended by some world leaders that many had written Rwanda off as a
:18:47. > :18:49.country with no future but only a past. My colleague George Alagiah is
:18:50. > :18:59.in Kigali and examines whether Rwandans have reconciled after their
:19:00. > :19:05.tragic past. A day to remember, a day to say
:19:06. > :19:10.never again. But for some in the crowd the memory alone was too
:19:11. > :19:14.much. Rwandans were joined by international dignitaries including
:19:15. > :19:20.the UN Secretary General, and today he acknowledged the organisation's
:19:21. > :19:24.failure to stop the genocide, the fastest boat of mass murder in
:19:25. > :19:33.modern times. The people who planned and carried
:19:34. > :19:39.out the genocide where London's -- were from Rwanda, but the history
:19:40. > :19:43.and root causes beyond beautiful country.
:19:44. > :19:50.One of the most infamous massacres took here in the South of the
:19:51. > :19:53.country. Up to 50,000 people are killed in this half built school
:19:54. > :19:59.with a sword refuge. It is a memorial centre now. First the water
:20:00. > :20:05.was cut off and now supplies were allowed in, and then they moved in
:20:06. > :20:09.for the kill. The clothing of the victims tells its own story. Women,
:20:10. > :20:15.children, the elderly hash no one was spared. How do you remember the
:20:16. > :20:19.past without getting trapped in? In every city, and every time, in every
:20:20. > :20:26.village am a these are the challenges they have to deal with.
:20:27. > :20:31.This man led a group of the killers two decades ago. In a remarkable act
:20:32. > :20:36.of generosity, he has been allowed into the life of this woman, one of
:20:37. > :20:45.the few who survived. She lost her husband and two sons on the night of
:20:46. > :20:48.April 20 1994. TRANSLATION: We were pleading for mercy and they still
:20:49. > :20:55.killed us. Some of the children were saying, forgive us for being Tutsi,
:20:56. > :20:59.we will not be any more. But they still killed us.
:21:00. > :21:06.What kind of man attacks innocent people? TRANSLATION: When we
:21:07. > :21:10.attacked, there was no humanity in us. We were like wild animals. If
:21:11. > :21:15.you have ever seen and mad dog, but was us. Our plan was to make sure
:21:16. > :21:21.there were no survivors. That was our mission.
:21:22. > :21:26.After the genocide, Emanuel admitted killing nine people and served seven
:21:27. > :21:29.years in jail. How can you sit here, sit next to
:21:30. > :21:35.the man who may have been the killer of your husband and sons?
:21:36. > :21:41.TRANSLATION: I never thought I could be close to a person who killed
:21:42. > :21:45.another, let alone speak to him. But with the counselling we have had, I
:21:46. > :21:53.have learned to forgive. I also forgive him because he told the
:21:54. > :22:00.truth and ask to be pardoned. Over half the population of Rwanda
:22:01. > :22:05.was born after the genocide. Among them are the 20,000 or so children
:22:06. > :22:14.conceived in heat and born to women who are raped. Background is one of
:22:15. > :22:18.them, but like the rest of his generation, he wants to look
:22:19. > :22:22.forward. TRANSLATION: The only reason we keep commemorating the
:22:23. > :22:27.genocide is to make sure it never happens again. It is not fair to
:22:28. > :22:32.just associate Rwanda with the genocide. If people came here, they
:22:33. > :22:38.would realise that. Today, people in Rwanda are
:22:39. > :22:42.remembering their past but in doing so they highlight the extraordinary
:22:43. > :22:44.achievements of the last two decades. And nation no longer
:22:45. > :22:53.divided between victims and perpetrators, but uniting around a
:22:54. > :22:57.shared vision of the future. Remembering the genocide 20 years on
:22:58. > :23:00.in Rwanda. He had one of the longest running
:23:01. > :23:04.film careers of all time: the Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney, has
:23:05. > :23:07.died at the age of 93. His career began, when he was just 18 months
:23:08. > :23:11.old. Mickey Rooney was a prolific actor,
:23:12. > :23:15.he starred in hundreds of films over ten decades. He worked with some of
:23:16. > :23:21.the greatest names in cinema during the golden age of Hollywood. In a
:23:22. > :23:31.moment we'll assess his life and career.
:23:32. > :23:35.We just got a glance of them there with Judy Garland, and some people
:23:36. > :23:40.would say that his best work was very early in his career.
:23:41. > :23:45.That is the problem when you start young. Even one direction, dare I
:23:46. > :23:50.say, the spent three years at the top ten years chasing it. What
:23:51. > :23:57.people don't realise is that he started out in silent films, he was
:23:58. > :24:02.then signed by MGM, and by the age of 19 1939 he was high star in the
:24:03. > :24:05.world. And they sure these pictures of him in the White House with
:24:06. > :24:11.Eisenhower, this was heady stuff for someone so young.
:24:12. > :24:14.He was living history, wasn't he? Absolutely, but when you're young
:24:15. > :24:19.you don't get it. He said he wasn't aware of how big he was. He was
:24:20. > :24:24.signed to a very strict studio system, and they did not want to
:24:25. > :24:32.marry either gardener. He went through a garage is. He would always
:24:33. > :24:36.refer to his eighth wife as a transient thing.
:24:37. > :24:40.Surprising he could render all their names.
:24:41. > :24:43.His advice was always to get married in the morning because it didn't
:24:44. > :24:51.work out you haven't wasted the whole day.
:24:52. > :24:54.Was he not declared bankrupt? He was 93, everybody has problems.
:24:55. > :24:59.You went through difficult times, and periods when Hollywood fell out
:25:00. > :25:05.with him. But he discovered and created Marilyn Monroe, and many
:25:06. > :25:11.other different stars, Lana Turner. The problem he really had, and he
:25:12. > :25:16.told this to me, he said he could have been bigger, but I am short.
:25:17. > :25:21.And when you are short, you can't play the bad guy.
:25:22. > :25:27.He was very versatile, he did funny, serious, poignant.
:25:28. > :25:32.He reinvented himself at the end as a Disney star, he popped up in a lot
:25:33. > :25:37.of those films, and he always played the grumpy grandad and Santa 's
:25:38. > :25:42.helpers. He didn't mind. Eyes and for the last time at the Oscars two
:25:43. > :25:52.years ago, and he looked great. And totally coppers mentis?
:25:53. > :25:57.He did a pantomime, and asked for anybody, he just love performing.
:25:58. > :26:04.How would he like to be remembered, would you guess?
:26:05. > :26:08.His daily was as long as you are remembered, that's all that
:26:09. > :26:16.matters. If you love the work, that's all that matters. He said
:26:17. > :26:24.that the big moment was meeting the British Royal Family, he got very
:26:25. > :26:31.teary about that. A reminder of our main story. Oscar
:26:32. > :26:33.Pistorius has made an apology to the family of Reeva Steenkamp on the
:26:34. > :26:37.first day of giving evidence. Humidity are full apology directly
:26:38. > :26:41.to the mother of Reeva Steenkamp. He told the court that had not been a
:26:42. > :26:48.moment since he shot dead Reeva Steenkamp that he had not thought
:26:49. > :26:51.about her family. That's all from us, from me and the team, goodbye.
:26:52. > :27:01.about her family. That's all from us, from me and the team, goodbye.
:27:02. > :27:07.A nasty squall line through this evening, but that will clear through
:27:08. > :27:08.the evening. A fresh breeze and the fresher feel to