26/08/2016 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today with me Tim Willcox.

Syrian rebels and civilians trapped for years by a brutal government

siege in a Damascus suburb negotiate their departure.

The deal means they have to leave Darayya, a symbol

of the uprising against Assad, as the President's army moves in.

A new line in the sand, as a French court rules

against the ban on full-body swimsuits, or burkinis, stating it

Preparations for the first funerals for the victims

of Italy's earthquake, as the chances of finding any

Archive files released today show thousands of British people

persecuted by the Nazis were refused compensation - by the UK Government

After four years under siege by Syrian government forces,

civilians and rebel fighters have begun to leave a suburb

Government soldiers in Darayya celebrated as the buses left.

A senior UN official has stressed that the evacuation must be

voluntary and described the situation there

BBC Arabic's Assaf Abboud is in Darayya.

BBC Arabic's Assaf Abboud is in Darayya.

The buses which will move Darayya residents have arrived.

It will take all the residents including women and children out

of the rebel controlled areas to shelters in and around Damascus.

It is all going under the supervision of the Syrian Red

There are also representatives for the UN Special Envoy for Syria,

Staffan de Mistura, the UN and the International Red Cross.

Some 4,000 people will be evacuated and taken to shelter centres

As for the fighters, they are divided into two groups.

The first group, who refuse reconciliation, will be moved

to the city of Idlib, and the second, who have reached

a deal with the government, will be moved to Damascus.

According to military sources, at least 300 civilians

Tomorrow, it will be fighters going out of the city.

This is all according to the agreement between rebel

Until now, the operation is going as planned

It might take longer than planned to get everyone out but so far

If all went to plan, Darayya will no longer be a hotspot

and the process for rebuilding this city's infrastructure and getting

That report from BBC Arabic's Assaf Abboud is in Darayya.

Kholoud Waleed is originally from Darayya.

She now edits a Syrian opposition newspaper in Gaziantep

I asked her whether she was worried about the safety of

The 8,000 civilians who are locked in the city for four years and now

the regime has insisted to send them to regime-controlled areas so,

for me, personally, I'm worried that they might be detained

or tortured and killed or they might disappear because we have no

And how many people do you think will remain or is everyone

going to be leaving this area now that the government

The regime has insisted on evacuating the whole town

so every single person will leave the town,

They have sent the civilians to a regime-controlled area

and they sent 50 fighters with their families towards Idlib

and tomorrow they're going to continue the process.

One campaigner described it as a drawing of another

France's highest administrative court has suspended a ban

on full-body burkini swimsuits, that was imposed in a town

The ruling could set a precedent for up to 30 other towns that

imposed bans on their beaches, chiefly on the Riviera.

Friday's court ruling stated the ban in Villeneuve-Loubet "seriously

and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms".

But local news agencies in France are reporting that many of those

mayors say they WILL continue with the ban in defiance

This is Sara and her family at the moment when we told them

that the burkini ban had been lifted.

Sara's Muslim, originally from Tunisia, and she told me that,

had it not been for the ban, she'd have been wearing

a burkini or something like it on the beach today.

Now that the news has come from Paris, she'll be back covering

TRANSLATION: It has been really hard because we all felt

Even though I've been covered for 30 years,

But in the last two weeks, I felt awkward.

It's the way people were looking at me.

Before, people didn't show how they felt towards us.

Now they say they don't like it and that really hurts.

One woman in Nice knows what it feels like.

She was photographed apparently being told by police to remove

That made the burkini ban not just a French but an international story.

But now the State Council in Paris has reversed the local banning

orders, which were issued over the last two weeks by some 30 towns,

The towns had said that after the Nice lorry attack

there was a risk to public order from outward signs of Muslim

It's based on the principle of freedom of religion,

the freedom to express religion, and to be able to wear whatever

Of course, not everyone in France is going to agree

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy says he wants a burkini ban

across all of the country and polls suggest that a majority

They want to stop what they see as the gradual encroachment

of Islamic lifestyle and symbols into the public sphere.

Outside France, such arguments seem to cut little ice.

The burkini ban sparked protests outside French embassies in London

and Berlin and campaigns on the internet urged the French

Things that might seem obvious in other places don't

Like letting women wear religiously inspired clothing on a beach.

A little earlier I spoke to Rim-Sarah Allouane

A little earlier I spoke a researcher in Public Law

I began by asking her what she made of the fact that much of the French

We should not judge by public opinion but by the law. Public

authorities have played with fears. We celebrate today as the

anniversary of French human rights. Does it fit with the principle of

secularism on which the French state is founded? Absolutely. This ban was

contrary to secularism. The burkini does not stop people... The judge

just told the law, that is how it is, and stated that this ban

entrenched fundamental liberties of freedom of conscience, freedom to

come and go and personal liberties. It is a small victory but still a

victory. The actual ban didn't use the word burkini at all. It said

dress should be in keeping and respectful of good public manners.

For many French people, good public manners is not wearing something

like that are keenly. -- burkini. How do you legally defined that?

That is the problem when it comes to public opinion. Absolutely but again

I am talking about the law. Public authorities shall not tell people

how they should dress. It was even more than good manners as well. It

was good morals, which is even worse, if you ask me. The council

clearly stated that there were no public order disturbances and the

Merit cannot restrict access to public beaches if a statement was

not proven, and that was the case. Hopes are fading in Italy of finding

any more survivors under the thousands of tonnes of rubble

following Wednesday's earthquake. The official number of people

killed stands at 267. The 6.2-magnitude quake hit

in the early hours of Wednesday, 100km north-east of Rome

in mountainous central Italy. The rescue and recovery

effort remains centred on three small towns,

Pescara del Tronto, This is Pescara del Tronto,

taken from a satellite You can see the red-tiled roofs

of the houses. Piles of rubble where most

of the buildings stood, As hopes fade that more survivors

will be found, we're beginning to find out more

about those confirmed dead. Many were enjoying summer

breaks in the mountains. Amongst them were three foreign

tourists from Britain, This is the road to

the village of Sommati. Two British families,

the Henniker-Gotleys and This is the house in which both

British families were staying. And you can see that the damage

is dramatic. Both families have paid tribute

to the work of those relief workers Their neighbour, Nando Bonnanni,

was the first to reach them. TRANSLATION: I shouted and called

out for Maria and Will, There was nothing we could do

with our bare hands. They were sleeping in a room

on the ground floor and it The Burnett family from London

lost their 14-year-old son, His school called him a much

loved and admired boy. 50-year-old Maria Henniker-Gotley

and her 55-year-old They were from Stockwell in south

London. They were always fun, you could

always have a laugh with them. It's just shocking that you go off

on a lovely summer holiday and, you know, we won't ever see

them again, really. Many survivors are left

with a simple, powerful question. Why did so many buildings fall

and so many people die? 11-month-old Elena Sofia

has no idea that she, She and her mother, Sonia,

are recovering in hospital. I freed myself and started asking

for help, but everyone So I went back and with my hands

I freed my daughter from the rubble. I could only see her little foot

and I just pulled her out. The worst hit town, Amatrice,

will soon begin to hold This town, and others,

will have to find new ground And you can keep up to date

with the latest with regard to the Italian earthquake

by visiting our website. We have reports, analysis,

and the latest casualty figures. Simply go to bbc.com/news

or download the BBC News app. A suicide bomber driving a truck

laden with explosives has hit a police headquarters in south-east

Turkey, cooling 11 The huge explosion targeted

a checkpoint in Cizre, and left the nearby riot

police HQ in ruins. Turkey's Prime Minister Binali

Yildirim blamed the banned Kurdish PKK militant group,

and vowed to retaliate. Cizre is a predominantly Kurdish

town near Turkey's borders It was the scene of clashes

between Turkish security forces Zimbabwe's riot police fired tear

gas and beat up opposition The protestors were demanding

urgent electoral reforms The High Court had issued an order

sanctioning the march to go ahead. This is part of a growing wave

of streets protests in the past months against President

Robert Mugabe's rule. The riot police had

cordoned off an open space christened the Freedom Square

in the capital, early morning. They beat up protesters,

fired tear gas and used water cannon to displace growing crowds marching

to the square. In central Harare there were running

battles and a number The police continued

to maintain a heavy presence, patrolling the streets

and with water cannon. Organisers of the march say

the people's anger is growing and this could be the beginning

of worse things to come. And I think, in my view,

it must not relent. It must continue to express itself,

the level of desperation So that we are able

to solve this problem. It appears that when people succumb

to fear and intimidation, But I'm very glad that

Zimbabweans are beginning We have learned that scores

of people were injured in the skirmishes and many

are receiving treatment It is not clear why the police

defied a High Court order. Organisers say they will not be

discouraged and continue with protests until fundamental

electoral reforms are effected ahead Now a look at some of

the day's other news. At least nine people have been

killed in an attack on a seaside restaurant in Somalia's capital,

Mogadishu. A car bomb exploded outside a beach

club in the Lido area. Police say two of the attackers

were killed and another The Islamist group Al Shabaab stages

regular attacks in Mogadishu. Police in Brazil have charged

the American swimmer Ryan Lochte The 12-time Olympic medallist had

claimed he and three team-mates were robbed at gunpoint

during the Rio Games, The maximum penalty is 18 months

in jail, and the 32-year-old could be tried in his absence,

if he fails to return to Brazil. Turkey has opened one of the world's

largest suspension bridges It's 1.4 kilometres long

and is the third to connect the European and Asian sides

of the country. It's part of President Erdogan's

drive to modernise Turkey's largest Some critics argue the project,

along with plans for a new airport and a tunnel under the Bosphorus,

are harmful to the environment. A Czech hiker has spoken about how

she survived for a month Pavlina Pizova and Ondrej Petr

were hiking the famous Routeburn One night her partner slipped down

a steep ice slope and died. They had been hiking

in the South Island of the country Following her partner's death

the Czech tourist hiked some two kilometres from where he fell,

to a warden's hut in the mountains Rescuers were finally alerted

after the Czech Consul spotted a Facebook post by concerned

relatives at home in Here's Pavlina describing

what happened to her. As you can imagine, the last month

was very harrowing for me, The tragic accident happened when my

partner fell and died. After his death, it took me two

nights in the open before I reached During this time, I got

extremely cold, exhausted I made a few attempts to walk

from the hut but my feet and the weather conditions

and the deep snow Ms Pizova was found by a search team

on Wednesday and as you can see from that interview

she is in remarkably good health. Her partner's body has now been

recovered by police. New files released at The National

Archives here in London, show that thousands of British

people who were persecuted by the Nazis were refused

compensation by the government. Most were from the Channel Islands

who were arrested and deported Final scenes of the long drama

in the Channel Islands. May 1945 and Guernsey has been

liberated after almost five Far away in Germany,

Channel Islanders too were being freed from often

brutal imprisonment. Paul and Phil's father Gerald

was one, caught with two sacks of stolen German coffee

and sentenced to hard labour. At the war's end he had

been at risk of death. They were actually on their way

to Dhaka, they didn't know it at the time,

the Allies were advancing and the German army

was in a bit of disarray. Didn't understand they were shooting

prisoners who were physically Gerald's health was ruined

by his imprisonment. Letters, one from

the Foreign Office... In the mid-1960s he was one of 4000

people applying for compensation as victims of Nazi persecution,

only a quarter of them successful. Gerald got ?2100,

around ?28,000 today. The files are now being released

at the National Archives, those of other Channel Islanders

are harrowing reading. Frank Tuck describes being beaten

with a pick handle and flogged "The fear that ruled us

was indescribable," he wrote. He saw a fellow Guernsey man die

of his treatment. Jack Harper was sometimes chained

in a standing position without food all night, by a sadistic

German guard. And Thomas describes working

in clothes soaked through that dried on one's back,

sometimes frozen stiff. Thomas, one of 17 Guernsey policemen

sentenced for sabotage, was so He got two and a half thousand

pounds, Margaret Godfrey Do you think he felt the money

was sufficient or do you think I think they thought

it was meagre, yes. Today Guernsey is a peaceful

place, these files are some people suffered

terribly under Nazi tyranny. Now to an intercontinental love

story spanning China to Edinburgh. A man has been reunited

with the loyal soul that helped him cross the finish line in one

of the world's most gruelling races. Extreme marathon runner

Dion Leonard was taking part in the Four Desert Race when he met

Gobi the stray dog in Now, thanks to a crowdfunding appeal

they are back together. It is a story of, well,

dogged determination. As Dion Leonard took part

in a gruelling ultramarathon, a 150-mile run across China's

forbidding Gobi Desert, he was We spent the whole week together,

literally either by my side running or in the evening

she was in my arms during the night, So I knew before I left the race

that I was going to bring her back. But while he flew back to Scotland,

just before the dog was due to go into Chinese

quarantine, she escaped. So Dion flew back to China and began

what seemed like a hopeless task, looking for Gobi in the place

she was last seen, Urumqi, a city of 3 million where very few

people speak English. So, today is day two

of trying to find Gobi. I've been handing these out

since 6am, looking around the parks and local areas for dogs,

and speaking to a lot of locals who actually think

they've seen Gobi, But China's internet

came to the rescue. The dog hunt spread like wildfire

on social media, with messages of support and cash to fund

the quest pouring in. Before long, Dion had a few leads,

and Gobi was found. I got some images through on my

phone and a phone call saying that a father and son had

found her and we went out there to see her and she ran

across the room and straight And I'd just walked in the door,

I hadn't said a word to either. So, Gobi is once again preparing

for a few months in quarantine and then Dion expects

to have her home before Christmas. Presumably the first command he'll

want to teach her - stay. But for now, from me and the rest

of the team, goodbye. Up and down weekend coming up. Some

sunshine for many of us but some rain as well. Tomorrow, many others

will stay fine. But it