12/01/2018 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today.

I'm Duncan Golestani.

Our top stories...

President Trump has said he won't -

for the moment - pull out

of the Iran nuclear deal.

He's described the 2015 deal as "one

of the worst in American history."

He added that the this new 120-day

waiver will be the last.

Donald Trump also denies

using an offensive word to describe

some poor countries

when discussing immigration.

The United Nations is among

those calling it racist.

These are shocking and shameful

comments from the President

of the United States.

Sorry, but there is no other word

that one can use but racist.

And Facebook's makeover.

The social network acknowledges that

business posts are crowding

out personal connections.

Also in the programme...

Some advice from Queen Elizabeth

on crown wearing - "Don't look

down or it'll fall off."

Hello and welcome

to World News Today.

We begin with some news breaking

in the past half hour.

President Trump has said

he won't pull out of the deal

under which Iran agreed

to curb its nuclear programme,

even though he's described it as one

of the worst in American history.

European allies of the US had warned

that the agreement was vital

for international security.

Let's speak to our Washington

correspondent Gary O'Donoghue.

What else did President Trump have

to say?

He was speaking through senior

administration officials and

effectively he had to come to a

decision about the sanctions. These

are the big sanctions tied to the

nuclear deal, in other words Iran's

ability to export oil, for its

banking system to rejoin

international finance system. He has

decided to keep those Saturn trims

off of Iran for a period of 120 days

pay he says it is the last time he

is going to do it and he wants

European counterparts to do, the

other signatories to the deal, to

work on what he calls a follow-up

arrangement that will put new

restrictions on Iran but it will

remove any sunset clause from the

agreement, so he doesn't want Iran

to develop a nuclear weapon and he

thinks the Europeans should be able

to agree to that, but he does not

want your consultation with Iran.

Given the opposition from the other

signatories, how likely he will get

what he once in 120 days?

Thereof some things that the other

European powers are concerned about,

particularly Iran's ballistic

missile programme, some of its

support for militant groups in the

region, what they would describe as

meddling in other countries, and

there is potential room for the US

and Europeans to work on applying

pressure to Iran in those areas, but

the last thing France, Germany, the

UK, Russia, China, the other

European Union countries, is pick

current deal which took a long time

to deal, which they think is working

effectively. They will resist that

significantly. Of course, Iran, if

it will not be involved in the

discussions, if it is kept away from

the table, there is no incentive for

them to follow it at all. It is a

pretty tricky path ahead for this

strategy from Donald Trump, but he

is in a sense backed into a corner

of his own making. This was a

campaign pledge, one of the things

that was good to be done on day one.

It has not been done, and he is

looking for a way to try and move

the debate on and feeling a bit

frustrated. Having said it, they are

imposing extra sanctions that are

unrelated to the nuclear deal, 14

extra ones on businesses and

individuals, including a sanction on

one individual who is a senior judge

in Iran and a brother of the Speaker

of the parliament. That will annoy

terror an considerably, I suspect.

-- that will annoy the capital Iran

a lot.

This comes hot on the heels

of President Trump appearing to deny

using offensive language to describe

some poor countries.

His reported comments

during a meeting about immigration

with lawmakers at the White House

have caused international outrage.

He asked why the US should take

in people from places such as Haiti,

El Salvador and some

African nations.

El Salvador's Foreign Minister

says he's sent a formal

letter of protest.

The President is widely reported

to have used a vulgar

and derogatory term -

one that you are about to hear.

President Trump is known for making

what some perceive as racially

charged remarks, for many around the

world, they will seem especially

shocking. The context for them

intense negotiations with lawmakers

about what to do about migrants who

come to the US illegally as

children. According to the

Washington Post, President Trump

said... White...

said... White... They say these

remarks could be devastating.

These

are shocking and shameful comments

from the president of the United

States. Sorry, but there is no other

word but someone can use but racist.

The president is understood to be

referring partly to Haiti, recently

hit by a hurricane Ammon of Central

America's poorest countries. There

has been a strong reaction from

there. TRANSLATION:

If we were to

leave the United States, it would be

bad for the American economy, not

just... Between best in the United

States.

In addition to the

neighbours, Donald Trump spoke of

African nations are named rocketry

way. There has been a mixed

response.

You should rectify what he

said.

We have to deal with our own

problems here, we do not need to

comment on what President Trump says

about Africa.

We do lots of...

In

contrast, he is wondered why the US

should not have more people from

Norway. Mr Trump has since tweeted

that...

Norway. Mr Trump has since tweeted

that...

Norway. Mr Trump has since tweeted

that...

That many senior politicians were in

the room and stand by their claims

that the president did use the

offensive terminology.

We have been hearing from one of

those politicians president at the

meeting, the Democratic senator Hugh

maintains Donald Trump did use the

offensive term. Let's have a listen.

He made his presentation, the

president interrupted him several

times with questions and in the

course of his comments said things

that where hate filled, vile. He

used those words. I understand how

powerful they are, but I cannot

believe that in the history of the

White House, in that office, any

president has ever spoken the words

that I personally heard our

president speak yesterday. You have

seen the comments in the press and I

have not read one of them that is

inaccurate. To no surprise, the

president started tweeting this

morning, denying he used those

words. It is not true. He said these

hate filled with things and he said

them repeatedly.

them repeatedly.

Our Washington

correspondence had more.

There has been a barrage of

international criticism. The United

States official saying these

comments as racist, Botswana has

contacted the Trump Administration

to find out whether this slur that

the president allegedly used applies

to them. But some people in the

White House take a different view of

the whole controversy. There are

some people in the White House who

have told reporters that they think

the alleged remark will work well

with his Republican votes. I have to

say, lots of Republicans are

horrified by what comes out of his

mouth. There is the political sense

at the White House that this is a

plus for the president with some of

his supporters, and one reporter has

been taught about last night, the

president was doing a victory lap.

President Trump had a meeting that

was televised on television where he

brought together lawmakers. They

have tried to hammer out a

compromise that would involve four

Trump the building of a wall for

Democrats, it would mean more

leniency. He has not been able to

get a deal this week. Also, I saw

something I never saw before, and I

have been in Washington on time, and

that is a president appearing in the

West Wing and being asked by

reporters, are you and it is

unfortunate. -- are you a racist was

back and he was signing a

proclamation in honour of the great

civil rights fighter Martin Luther

King.

Pakistan has deployed

paramilitary forces to suppress

riots in the eastern town of Kasur,

following the rape and killing

of a six-year-old girl.

Protesters are angry at the police

for failing to find those

responsible for a series of child

murders over the past two years.

Officials say the situation is tense

but has been brought under control

after two days of violence.

Our Pakistan correspondent

Secunder Kermani has more.

So far today, Kasur

has remained calm.

There is a big police

presence, but there hasn't

been the kind of angry

protest that we have seen over

the past few days following the

discovery of the body

of six-year-old Zainab Ansari.

There is, though, amongst

the investigating team, a sense of

urgency that whoever

killed her needs to be caught.

We have seen a police document

that reveals that in

this city, over the past year,

11 young girls have been attacked.

Traces of the same DNA have been

found on the bodies of six of them.

All of them were abducted from close

to their homes, all of their bodies

were later recovered,

also nearby to their homes.

Only one of them survived.

She is currently in hospital.

Her relatives say she is unable to

talk and unable to move

from the head down.

TRANSLATION:

If this happened

to the daughter of a

politician, then wouldn't they have

got the attacker by now?

Our family is poor, so no one cares.

Zainab's family has some

political connections,

that is why they have

had so much attention.

All six girls went

missing from the same

small neighbourhood.

The police do have a grainy

CCTV image of the

suspect and a manhunt is under way

to try and find him.

But many in the city

still pose the question, why

wasn't more done earlier?

Facebook has announced

what it says is a major

change to its news feed -

prioritising posts from family

and friends, over those from media

organisations and businesses.

The BBC's media Editor

Amol Rajan reports.

Mark Zuckerberg's social network has

become of the biggest

distributors of news in history.

Today the company went back

to its social roots.

He said he wants to make

sure the time we spend

on Facebook is time well spent.

Facebook's founder admits users

are being fed a heavy diet

of news and adverts,

together with the more personal

posts from friends and family.

In Bristol today, many young

Facebook users agreed.

It's full of adverts for shopping

and baby things at the moment,

stuff I search on Google.

So I think it would be a lot better

if it was just based around friends

and family without any adverts.

I just feel like I'm

being sold to the whole time.

People are making assumptions

about my opinions, my tastes,

things I'm interested in.

Zuckerberg says he's changing

the goal to make you have more

meaningful social interactions.

That means less news

and more friends and family.

This is the biggest change

to Facebook for many years.

It follows controversy over

the promotion of fake news

with fears the platforms

being used by foreign powers

to subvert democracy.

Today's changes aren't being driven

by those concerns but are clearly

an attempt to restore trust

in a global brand, and the impact

on our news ecosystem could be huge.

Mark Zuckerberg clearly accepts

multiple news is of equal value

but his changes could damage some

reputable news providers who have

come to rely on his platform.

The elephant in the room is fake

news and how they are trying

to clean up the timelines.

The fear for publishers like us

is that the baby gets thrown out

with the bath water and we lose

the really important real journalism

along with the fake news

that they are trying to get rid of.

Google is often described

as part of a duopoly

that is swallowing the industries,

together with Facebook.

Today in a rare interview,

Google's most senior British

executive seemed to see this

as an opportunity.

There's an upside to traditional

media moving to the digital world.

You can reach 5 billion

people, you can use video.

You know yourself as a journalist,

there's a huge ability to tell

the important stories in new ways

and people are turning

to the digital world more than ever

before to understand the news.

For Facebook's young missionary

founder, a short-term hit

in revenues is worth it to lay

to rest accusations that it's

becoming the anti-social network.

Joining me from San Fransisco

is Alex Kantrowitz, he's

the Senior Technology Reporter at

Buzzfeed.

Just how big is this?

This is very big. It usually rules

out changes and it is a little blog

post, but we saw Mark Zucker Berg

post this time, every executive that

I follow from Facebook, on Facebook

is posting about it, so I think you

can expect these changes to be big

and meaningful and impact businesses

and the media in significant ways.

What you think has driven these

changes?

I think it is very clear, I think

Facebook had been transitioning from

a platform of friends and family to

a platform that emphasised branded

content and publications. And after

the 2016 US election, I think there

is a questionable value. They saw

passive consumption of news content

making people feel bad, they sought

friends and publishing that was so

impressive that it did not make

people feel good about posting their

amateur videos and photos, so I

think Facebook took that into

account and thinks we should

deemphasise publications and brands.

Ordinary people will be happy that

they can see friends and family and

what they are rocked. What about the

advertisers, the people that hate

beyond that, because isn't there a

message going to be crowded out?

They will be really upset, in my

opinion. They have spent lots of

money trying to hold on Facebook and

they feel for years they have built

up audiences and pages on Facebook

and slowly but surely, Facebook has

pulled the carpet from under them

and now they are forced to pay to

reach those audiences, so especially

be small and medium-sized business

that would rely on Facebook, you

will see complaints from them and

the big advertisers. Anyone who runs

a public page that relies on

Facebook to reach their audience is

going to be pretty upset with these

measures when we see them roll-out.

In the report we just ran, one

publisher said that they worry that

reliable news will be crowded out

and will get lost in amongst the

fake news. Do you think they have

done enough here?

I think that has already been a

problem. If you look at the Facebook

platform, you have seen for a long

time their inability to rein in fake

news, and especially sensationalised

news, which maybe takes a nugget of

news and blows it out of proportion

in a way when you wouldn't recognise

it compare to a traditional news

publication. You have already seen

these publications are mainstream

publications crowded out by the fake

an sensationalised news, so I do not

think the change will make a big

difference when it comes to that. It

will be more difficult for them to

reach their audience than it already

was. BLEEP hole Thank you for

joining us.

It's a social media campaign that's

spread to nearly every corner

of the world and empowered women,

and men, to stand up and talk

about their own experiences

of sexual harassment and violence.

What's called the "Me Too" movement

started in the wake of numerous

allegations made by women

against Hollywood film

producer Harvey Weinstein.

One of those women is

actress Ashley Judd.

She's just spoken to my colleague

Stephen Sackur for the BBC's

Hardtalk programme.

Take a listen.

What we see now is the growth

of a real movement

of women speaking out.

Are you satisfied that this has come

about, or are you deeply frustrated

that it has taken so long for this

to come about?

What is your overriding

emotion right now?

Joy.

Just unmitigated, electrifying joy.

I'm so happy.

I'm so happy that it is here.

I have been telling this

story for a long time,

since the moment it happened,

in fact, because, you know,

my particular examples of harassment

with Harvey Weinstein,

I am a "teller", to use the word

that Laura Dern used the other night

on stage at the Golden Globes.

I am a "tattler".

And I was molested for the first

time when I was seven years old,

and the first thing I did was go

to a grown-up and say, "Hey,

this just happened."

And as so often the case,

the grown-ups said, "Oh,

he is a nice old man,

that is not what he meant."

But I somehow or another

managed to stay absolutely

authentic in my truth,

that a knew something terribly wrong

had happened, and I think

that is why I am such

a crusader for gender

equality and for the full

eradication of all gender-

and sexual-based violence,

because I experienced it as a youth,

I experienced it in Hollywood.

It has been the core of my

humanitarian work for over 15 years.

And now that this movement has

collectivised and catalysed

and is here, it is incredibly

gratifying to me.

And you can see the full

version of Stephen Sackur's

interview with Ashley Judd on Monday

15th January here on BBC World News.

The US President is also

in the headlines today

after cancelling a visit

to Britain next month.

He had been due to attend

the official opening of the new US

Embassy in south London.

But the US president tweeted

he was not a "big fan"

of the new embassy and blamed

Barack Obama's administration

for a "bad deal" -

despite the fact the move was agreed

under George W Bush.

Our diplomatic correspondent

James Landale has more.

The new US embassy, on the south

bank of the River Thames in London.

A monument, we are told,

to America's commitment to London

that the US ambassador had hoped

would be formally opened

by Donald Trump next month.

Yes, I do hope, and we are going

to welcome him when he comes.

Except that he is not coming.

Mr Trump said that he cancelled

the trip because he opposed

the sale of the previous embassy

building by Mr Obama.

A decision that was

welcomed by his critics.

Here you have the head of state

of another country who has not only

promoted hatred and division

in his own country, but is surely

due to his online activity

guilty of doing the same

in our country as well.

Actually the decision to sell

the old embassy was initially taken

by President Bush in order to find

a new location.

The old embassy had also been

the scene of many demonstrations

in the past and diplomats said

it was the threat of

similar protests that had

spooked the White House.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan,

said there would be mass

protests like these,

but peaceful ones.

The Foreign Secretary,

Boris Johnson, accused Mr Khan

of putting UK-US relations at risk,

a view that Downing Street didn't

echo, but others did.

In this country, we have the Mayor

of London, Jeremy Corbyn and others

encouraging large-scale street

protests against him.

I feel that must be

part of his decision.

And that is the point.

In his first year of office,

Mr Trump has travelled

the world, including France,

Germany and Belgium.

The UK is notable for its absence.

The US ambassador has said that this

fortress of glass represents

a new era in friendship

between the US and the UK,

a strengthening of the relationship.

But the fear among diplomats

is that the President's decision not

to open this building signals that

actually for him at least

Britain is not a priority.

So, for now, the closest

we will get to seeing Mr Trump

at the new embassy is this waxwork,

as ministers say they look

forward to a visit at some

point in the future.

Well, it is for the US President

to determine his travel priorities.

Obviously, it's an important

diplomatic partner for the UK.

We want the closest possible

relationship with the US.

Tonight, as Mr Trump

honoured Martin Luther King,

he was caught up in yet another row,

having to deny making racist remarks

about African countries.

Home or abroad, this President

is rarely free from controversy.

James Landale, BBC News.

As part of events to mark

the 65th anniversary

of Queen Elizabeth's Coronation,

the BBC is broadcasting a programme

called The Crown Jewels.

In the programme, the Queen shares

memories of the 1953 coronation

ceremony itself as well as memories

of her father, King George VI.

Here's Our Royal Correspondent

Nicholas Witchell.

She famously doesn't do interviews.

This is probably as

close as she'll get:

a conversation with questions about

the Coronation, the Crown Jewels,

and the Imperial State Crown worn

by her and her father,

King George VI.

Fortunately, my father and I have

about the same sort of shaped head.

Once you put it on, it stays.

It just remains itself.

You have to keep your

head very still?

Yes.

It was huge then.

Yes.

Very unwieldy.

You can't look down to read

a speech,

you have take

the speech up

because if you did, your neck

would break, it would fall off.

It's difficult to always remember

that diamonds are stones,

so very heavy.

Yes.

So there are some

disadvantages to crowns.

But otherwise, they're

quite important things.

She rode to her coronation

in the gold State Coach.

It weighs four tons.

It's not built for comfort.

Horrible.

It's not meant for

travelling in at all.

It's only sprung on leather.

So it rocks around a lot.

It's not very comfortable.

Were you in it for a long time?

Halfway round London.

Really?

We must have gone about

four or five miles -

we could only go at a walking pace.

The horses couldn't

possibly go any faster.

It's so heavy.

65 years after the event,

a monarch talking

about her coronation -

the Crown - the real one.

Nicholas Witchell, BBC News.

Don't forget you can get

in touch with me and some

of the team on Twitter -

I'm @DuncanGolestani

Do stay with us on BBC News.

Do stay with us on BBC News.