01/03/2016 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today, with me Karin Giannone.

The headlines: One of the most important moments in the run up

It's Super Tuesday, when 11 states vote for their candidates

for the White House, and this could be the moment

Donald Trump cements his lead in the race for the

8,500 migrants stuck at Greece's border with Macedonia in worsening

conditions, at a camp that can't cope with the numbers.

The trial collapses of a man accused of murdering 29 people in the Omagh

And understanding how memories actually change our brains,

three British researchers win a million Euro prize

for their outstanding contribution to neuroscience.

Voting is in full swing in the biggest test so far for candidates

running for the White House in Super Tuesday. It is seen as a make or

break for republican and democratic hopefuls.

Voters from Vermont to Texas and Georgia are heading

to the polls on this, the biggest day in the nomination

Donald Trump is widely expected to pick up enough votes to be chosen

as the Republican candidate for the White House.

Hillary Clinton is ahead in the Democratic race,

but is still facing a stiff challenge from Bernie Sanders

James Cook in is Houston, Texas, a key Republican battleground.

Yes, as you say, Texas is a big deal in this election, as it is in so

many other ways, such a huge state here in the southern US. We have

seen Ted Cruz here in the last couple of hours. This is a polling

station here in Huston. He is the Texan Senator and he would hope to

win in this part of the world. If he doesn't he may as well pack his bags

and make a very short journey home because if he cannot win his home

state and his chances of getting on towards winning the presidential

nomination for the Republican party seemed to be receding. The positive

news for service Ted Cruz is that the polls suggest that he is doing

well here in Tesco's -- Texas. Not so much for Marco Rubio, the Florida

senator. Polls in Florida suggest he is lagging quite a long way behind

but he has a few weeks to catch up if he wants to do so. He really

needs to do so because Florida is not voting today on Super Tuesday.

11 states voting across the country in an election that has been

extraordinary in many ways. I have spoken to voters here, asking them

what they think of the presidential election campaign so far and it was

striking that three of them, independently of each other, or use

the same word, crazy, to describe the campaign. That could be because

Donald Trump, the outsider and property tycoon has really shaken up

this race and on the other side there has been a challenge that has

shaken at least in the early stages Hillary Clinton as well from Bernie

Sanders, a challenge from the last but this is really the moment -- a

challenge from the left but this really is the moment when we find

out who is all at and no cattle. In Houston, it's the

biggest show in town. Not Super Tuesday, but the annual

livestock fair and Rodeo. They've come to Texas from all over

the United States for this event and when it comes to politics,

folk here, like everywhere, Donald Trump is stating exactly

and what this country needs is a leader in business and not

I don't really care for Trump because I feel like he attacks

people when he's trying to make a point.

I believe he's trying to point out everyone else's flaws and not really

It's kind of crazy right now, if I can go-ahead and say

I dislike, kind of, what he stands for.

Whatever he tells you, he does what he tells you.

In 11 states, Democrats and Republicans are doing just that

today - picking the person they want to stand for President.

Here in Texas there are local elections, too.

But in the White House race the votes will be counted,

shared out among the candidates and then turned into delegates

who will confirm their choice at party conventions in the summer.

For everyone involved in the presidential race this

is the biggest test so far, but here in Texas there's particular

If he loses here, his campaign will be in real trouble.

Polls suggest the Texas Senator is on course for victory

Almost everywhere else though Donald Trump is the favourite.

Today, he campaigned in Ohio, which votes in a fortnight.

Illegal immigration has turned out to be one of the big factors

You wouldn't even be talking about it.

You wouldn't be hearing about it if I didn't take take all that heat.

As for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders left-wing challenge

to Hillary Clinton seems to be fading.

Secretary Clinton stands out in a very positive way and I think

Mr Trump is an embarrassment to our country.

Bernie Sanders, he makes the most sense, he has the most experience

and he's really making a change for America.

The presidential election isn't until November,

but already it feels like make-or-break.

James Cook, BBC News, Houston in Texas.

Stay with us for full coverage of who Americans are choosing

We'll be talking to BBC correspondents in states including

Katty Kay will be bringing it all together live from

Then we'll have the results live from midnight GMT.

And do go to our website for comprehensive analysis

and a live page with the very latest developments.

Europe is on the cusp of a self-induced humanitarian

crisis, that's the verdict of the UN's refugee agency

24,000 people are stranded there because

neighbouring states have imposed restrictions on their borders.

8,500 are stuck at Idomeni on Greece's border

with Macedonia, the scene of fighting yesterday when hundreds

We are just on the edge of the main road running up to the edge

of the border camps between Greece and Macedonia.

What is noticeable this morning is that many hundreds of people

Some of them have been dropped off by taxis about 2km away but these

people here have walked 25km so far this morning from another

They are determined to get to the border today.

You can see the stream of people, I have counted dozens,

if not hundreds, of people walking across this field this morning

heading up to the border camp, which is about 1.5 miles from here.

There are camps further south with capacity for these people.

But the feeling among them is they don't want to be there,

they feel that they will only be able to make progress if they make

So they are determined to get to the border camp despite it

being overcrowded because they think that will give them a better chance

So you have this constant stream now, people walking down this road

and across these fields trying to get to frontier.

This is the main line that runs through the heart of the border camp

here, we are looking south into Greece.

It is being used as a resting place now.

The protests yesterday took place at the border gate,

about 150 metres away and you can see the Greek police have blocked

They are actually preventing people from going up

And a repeat of yesterday's scenes when the tear gas was fired.

So the police here are stopping people from proceeding.

But again you talk to people here, they have been there for many days,

they are not sure when if ever they are going to get

And it just feels even busier every time you come here.

They are trying to feed the people but again there are four

It rained heavily last night so you will see on the fences a lot

of belongings hanging up to dry after the heavy rain.

Lots of the tents here are not waterproof.

It is calmer here today, but still lots of people arriving

and they are getting increasingly fed up with the long wait

they are facing when they say they have the right papers to move

The migrant crisis is putting extreme pressure on Europe's borders

and different countries are responding in different ways.

It's not just Macedonia which is putting up fences.

Migrants heading north are faced with a razor-wire fence

15-feet high along parts of Bulgaria's border with Turkey.

Hungary has put up barriers along its borders with Serbia and Croatia.

There are also fences between Croatia and Slovenia,

All this has meant that migrants and refugees arriving in Greece

are having trouble moving north, deepening the country's crisis.

Speaking from Athens, the Greek Defence Minister,

Panos Kammenos, told the BBC his country is doing its best to manage,

but the actions of countries like Austria are not helping.

It is very important, if they all want to really find a solution, to

not press Greece but pressed Turkey. To operate as we have agreed in Nato

and accept back all these special relations of the middle of the

emergency and to provide them with possibilities to build a camp under

the European Union and UN GR rules, that means the refugee people are

taken to a safe county -- country and don't give the blame game to

Greece. What is happening increases only part of a much wider crisis at

the moment. Clashes have happened in Calais where a camp known as the

jungle is being torn down. This camp has been marked for

demolition. They cried, take our house and we will take our lives! It

was a protest of the powerless, ended in minutes by the police.

Around them other figures watched, defiant from their own flimsy

rooftops, wrapped against the cold. The irony is that migrants here are

clinging on to makeshift shelters in a country most do not want to be.

Moving to official migrant camps with heat and electricity means

registering in France. These temporary shacks show their resolve

not to settle here. This road marks the new boundary of the Jungle.

Everything to the south will be cleared out and the people evicted.

Everything, that is, except for the communal buildings, the mosque

summer schools in the community centres and the churches. Many of

the people who are facing eviction today say that rather than leave

their community the communal buildings where they sleep tonight.

After yesterday's violence, there is a sense of resignation among many

migrants here. As more shelters burns today the government directed

its anger towards the extreme and violent actions by some of the

activists here. Police on the ground told us off camera that most of the

agitators are British. We have arrested four people, mostly

British. These are people who use other spot are never on the

front-line themselves. They use the migrants, inciting them to start

fires and throw stones. The shrinking of the migrant camp hides

a bigger truth. Fresh figures from the UN refugee agency suggest the

rate of new arrivals across the Mediterranean has almost tripled

since last year. The building's might be cleared, but as for their

owners, many are still waiting for their chance in England and many

more are on their way. Next week European leaders will meet

again to find a way out of the crisis. I asked our brussels

correspondent what hope success?

There is a process going on as we speak of European leaders and

meetings going on to try and prepare for that summit on Monday. We have

European leaders from the European Commission, European union leaders,

going to talk with countries along the migrant route, Austria, Balkan

countries, Greece, also going to Turkey and we know on Friday that

Angela Merkel will meet with the French president, Francois Hollande,

to try and coordinate policy there. What they are facing really is the

need to try and get in place this unified European response that they

have been talking about for months, policies that they have already

decided on to institute better controls in Greece, to take those

who have refugee status from Greece and spread them around Europe. All

of those sorts of things. They need to make work efficiently. They

simply have not been functioning and that will be the focus on Monday and

it is something that Angela Merkel is pushing hard and we will see if

she has much success. A look now some of the avenues.

The South African President Jacob Zuma has survived another

no-confidence debate in Parliament. The second in a year. He was

repeatedly accused of destroying the economy he was told he was being

insulted with no luck at his track record. In the end he was defeated.

Police in India have charged a former head of the UN's climates

channel with sexual offences, including harassment and stalking.

The charges come one year after a female colleague at his

environmental think tank in Delhi filed a complaint, accusing him of

sending inappropriate texts and e-mails. He denies all charges.

President Hasan Rouhani has said the results of the elections have

shown that Iranians wanted moderation.

His supporters and their reformist allies won a landslide in Tehran

and deprived the Islamic hardliners of their majority in Parliament.

But their success is largely due to the efforts of two former

presidents who are now back at the centre stage

Former Presidents Mohammad Khatami, on the left here, and Ali Akbar

Hashemi-Rafsanjani, both the bane of the life of the hardliners who,

over the years, have done as much as they

can to isolate them and their political lives.

can to isolate them and end their political lives.

But both are now back from the political wilderness

Former president Rafsanjani here on Friday,

voting in elections that he managed to turn into a big challenge

for Islamic hardliners, hardliners, uniting all the strands of moderate

Islamists behind the supporters of the President Rouhani.

This is a group of almost all the candidates

that he managed together under one umbrella for the elections in

All of them have now been elected, all 30 of them, to the 30

Over the years he has been under ferocious attack from the hardliners

who have deprived him of his position as the Friday prayer

leader of the capital, who pushed him from

the chair of the crucial Assembly Of Experts.

Who jailed his son on charges that are widely seen as

politically motivated and jailed his

daughter for supporting the opposition movement.

But he is now back, elected with the most number

of votes in the elections for the Assembly Of Experts,

with a shot at choosing the next supreme leader.

As for the former president Mohammad Khatami here entering

a polling station to vote on Friday, the hardliners had

even banned the use of his photographs, let alone his words.

This is why in this campaign poster you only see

In spite of being barred from politics he recorded this

video, posted on social media, calling on his supporters,

the reformists and all of those who support democracy to come out

and vote in big numbers for all of their candidates.

A tactic he said could defeat the hardliners, a tactic

Both are now back, having engineered to defeat

the hardliners, who have now lost the control of parliament

Now, the Omagh bombing was the worst single atrocity of the Northern

Ireland Troubles and today the prospect of justice for the victims

remains as remote as ever. The trial has collapsed. Seamus Daly has

always denied the murders and today he was released from prison. The

prosecution said it was withdrawing the charges because a key witness

was unreliable. August 15th, 1998 was

a day unparalleled. Even in Northern Ireland's

history of brutality. This was a Saturday afternoon

in a busy market town. By evening, children and parents

were grieving because of a massive 18 years later, shops have been

repaired, this street rebuilt but nothing is forgotten in Omagh

with the relatives of those who died However, they didn't find it

when they went to court today. The case against Seamus Daly,

the man accused of all 29 murders collapsed before it

even reached trial. If you notice here this morning,

there's not many families. Most families have given

up on justice. They've given up

on the justice system. Seamus Daly's always strongly denied

any part in the explosion in Omagh. I'd like to ask you some questions,

please, about the Omagh bombing. However, in 2000, Panorama named him

as one of the Real IRA gang Key to the prosecution case

was a mobile phone used Their main witness said

he could connect Seamus Daly However in court he gave

inconsistent evidence and contradicted his

earlier testimony. The prosecution against

the defendant, Seamus Daly, The failure of this case to reach

trial means only one man has ever been prosecuted

for the murders at Omagh. In December 2007, Sean Howie

was acquitted and cleared of involvement in the attacks

after a lengthy criminal case. Two years later, four other men,

including Seamus Daly, were found liable in a civil case

but they continued to push Two years ago, Seamus Daly

was arrested and charged. However, today, the case against him

collapsed with the prosecutors admitting they didn't

have enough evidence. To bring it to that level where it's

even been at a committal I don't understand why they put

families continually through it. This afternoon, Seamus Daly left

prison where he's been held He's no longer wanted in connection

with the murders of all those But the town's them otherial garden

also serves as a reminder no-one's been held to account

for their deaths. Three British researchers have won a

coveted award for their work in the brain. They all made scientific

advances into research on the memory and how we all remember.

Throughout our lives we collect memories,

some remaining clear, others fading, they're part of a system that allows

Without it, we'd never advance and everyday tasks,

like driving, would be simply impossible.

Until recently, no-one knew how the brain could store information,

but researchers at this lab in Edinburgh, together with teams

in Bristol and London, have found ways to explain

Memory we've now got a good handle on because we know about the events

that occur when memories are laid down.

We know more or less where it happens and we know at the level

or connections between nerve cells what's happening.

How the brain actually holds memories was for years something

that was too difficult to understand, but scientists then

realised that one part of it, called the hippocampus,

Inside it there are billions of connections between the brain

cells and, when those links become stronger,

that's the key mechanism allowing us to remember.

So one crucial discovery is that the brain can change,

creating new connections and breaking them.

Another is that faults with this process can be linked to conditions

including depression, autism, addiction and Alzheimer's.

An image of some of the billions of connections inside the brain.

One hope with this research is to fight Alzheimer's

If we could zero in on this connection process between brain

cells and understand why that connection process is,

as it were, under stress, and making it difficult for people

to keep a record of their daily events, then maybe we could develop

new kinds of drugs that could help that process.

As the scientists delve into the mechanism of memory,

That some day in the future people who are suffering from trauma,

like soldiers after battle, might be helped by having their bad

memories deleted, a whole new world of possible treatments has

Now, a lot of people have been talking about this online, wondering

what it could have been. Pictures have emerged of a suspected meteor

shower, lighting up the sky across the north-east of Scotland. Many

people reported seeing what looked like a fireball and a bright flash.

Others said they heard a rumbling sound caused by something like a

sonic boom. Very impressive. The Rolling Stones have announced they

will play their first ever concert in Cuba on the 25th of March.

It will be a free, open a gate. It will be held in the Cuban capital

Havana and it will come four days after the scheduled visit of

President Barack Obama to the island. In a statement the band

said, we have performed in many special places throughout our long

career but this show in Havana is going to be a landmark event for us.

Let us return to our top story. It is crunch time for the Republican

and Democratic hopefuls for the race in the White House. In 11 states are

making a choice and we will get a brief flavour of the mood amongst

those casting their ballots. Hillary Clinton supporters in Virginia. She

is more qualified than any other candidacy history. Her experience as

Secretary of State and Senator makes a very impressive candidate. I think

she will win today and as far as going for words I think she will do

great. A little bit depends on who the

Republican candidate is. In my opinion if it is Donald Trump, I

think she will win overwhelmingly. Donald Trump will make America great

again. A lot of things that go on in this city, we don't need a

socialist. They raced my property taxes through the roof. I stood in

line for six hours the other day at Trump rally because to me he is just

the man, the one who will make the country great again. Full results of

Super Tuesday on BBC News. That is it from the programme. Good night.