04/03/2018 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today.

I'm Geeta Guru-Murthy.

Our top stories...

Civilians flee eastern Ghouta,

as Syrian government forces

advance on the rebel-held area.

Polls are closing in just under an

hour in the Italian general

election.

Parties on all sides are

hoping for at least a share of

power.

As Hollywood prepares

for the Oscars,

will the ceremony focus on the films

or the new mood of protest?

These are live pictures. Harvey

Weinstein has changed the scope of

award season on what people ask on

red carpets and what they wear full

he has changed how the whole

industry is behaving.

Hello and welcome

to World News Today.

The Syrian president has insisted

that the current offensive in

Eastern Ghouta must continue as

thousands of civilians flee. He said

also that Western accusations over

chemical weapons are an excuse to

attack the Syrian army. A monitor

based in the UK says government

forces have now taken a quarter of

the Ghouta enclave. Our Middle East

editor reports from Damascus.

These people said their village

was moving because the

Syrian Army had arrived.

One man cursed the Russians and

Iranians, key allies of the regime.

Air strikes, he said,

including banned cluster

bombs had not stopped.

TRANSLATION: It has been

four days, no fuel, no

bread, no food, no water.

Where is the world?

Where are human rights?

We are humans, not animals.

400,000 people live

in Eastern Ghouta, an area

of fields and small towns

about the size of Manchester.

Most of them are civilians who have

not been able to escape the war.

TRANSLATION:

When the planes

shelled, I could not see

anything in front of me.

I did not wait for the ambulance,

I started running.

The air strikes have been

followed by ground troops

who are making rapid advances.

The strategy seems to be to cut

Eastern Ghouta in half.

Negotiations between the rebel

groups and the Russians have been

going on for quite some time.

It is not clear if the objective

is a ceasefire or the effective

surrender of the rebels.

The biggest rebel group says

it is regrouping after a retreat.

The fighting is still going on,

for the regime the prize is the end

of the last major rebel

enclave around Damascus.

For the rebels, these

are desperate moments.

Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Damascus.

Italians are voting

in a general election

against the backdrop of a bitter

debate on immigration.

Latest indications point,

once again, to no clear majority

for any single party.

Well, let's cross live to Rome.

My colleague Karin Giannone

is there for us.

It has been a fierce campaign. We

get the results soon.

A fierce

campaign indeed. The polls close in

just under an hour. Italians really

do not have a clear idea of what the

likely outcome is going to be. As

you mentioned, no party looks like

it will get the necessary 40 descent

to secure a majority. So, the close

of polls could be the starting point

for coalition talks that may go on

for weeks. This report from our

Europe editor.

Charming, but troubled Naples,

unhappily encapsulates the problems

at the heart of Italy's elections.

Falling living standards,

unemployment, and mass irregular

migration from Africa.

But uncertainty hangs in the today.

Italians are voting for change.

They are just not sure

which political party to trust.

TRANSLATION: I am so

worried about Italy.

I said a prayer before

coming to vote.

TRANSLATION: Italians

are frustrated.

Politicians need to

hear our voice today.

Son of Naples is the leader

of the party tipped to become

Italy's largest today.

His Five Star Movement claims to be

corruption-free and people-friendly.

But the political system

here favours coalitions and meaning

this familiar face could

be kingmaker instead.

Naples and the south of Italy

will swing the vote today.

Silvio Berlusconi did some

last-minute campaigning here

on behalf of a right-wing Coalition.

So, what does this rather chaotic

political picture mean

for Italy and Europe?

After all, this is the Eurozone's

third-largest economy.

Confusion is quintessentially

Italian, Brussels is used to it,

the financial markets seem prepared

for it, they believe that

a Coalition government will

smooth away political extremism.

This Napolitan shop is famous for

its handcrafted political figures.

Today, all Italian voters

will help paint the future

landscape of the country.

Turnout really is key because, in

the weeks before the elections, some

polls were saying as many as 40% of

Italians were not going to bother to

turn up or were undecided. In the

last election 28% of the voting

population and stained. As we heard

there, the South is three critical.

-- abstained. Latest figures show

there is a higher turnout than usual

in the south and a lower turnout

than usual in the north. In the

south that could favour the Five

Star Movement. I been speaking to

John Hooper, Italy correspondent for

the Economist about just how turnout

could affect the result.

The first thing that is different is

turnout, which seems to be on the

low side, going the way of maybe 5%

and 10% less this time. And with

very significant regional

variations. In the south, turnout

seems to be higher, which should,

perhaps, favour the Five Star

Movement, which has made the south

into something of a fortress. It

seems to be going lower in the

centre and the North and that may be

bad news for particularly the

Democratic Party.

You would be able

to talk about disillusionment with

the parties in the south because of

the economic situation in the south

to two high unemployment.

High

unemployment and high juvenile

unemployment. Lots of people in need

25 to 35 age group who are on

short-term contracts, who are not

getting the benefits of full

employment, and who feel there is a

plague on all your houses. Vote for

the Five Star Movement because they

are in new faces and they promised

something different.

What exactly do

the Five Star Movement offer? Can

you define them left, right or

centre, or none of the above?

If you

average out their policies they come

up more in the centre. They are more

like a group in Spain in the fact

they pick policies both from the

right and the left. They would say

the left and right mean nothing but

since the fall of the Berlin Wall,

these are outdated concepts. Having

said that, what they really stand

for, certainly according to their

founder, is the introduction of

direct democracy. In other words,

doing away with the present system

of parties and replacing it by a

system in which everybody can click

with a mouse and vote on everything.

That is really the original purpose

of the Five Star Movement and in

fact Grillo put up a post just the

other day saying that you have to

remember what you are there for.

This is a party which, once it gets

into power and does that, it should

disband itself. That is why they

call themselves a movement. They

really are different from parties

want to do away with parties.

If you

thought it was just the European

Union watching closely what happens

in Italy, think again. I rather

interesting figure has arrived in

town to monitor this election very

closely. None other than Donald

Trump smack former chief strategist,

Steve Bannon. He finds himself very

much aligned with the leader of the

populist, anti-immigration

right-wing party. He has come to

town to give a boost to those forces

of population which have been making

huge waves in this election, which

has been very dominated by the

matter of immigration. Just to take

you through what we are expecting.

Polls close at 11 o'clock local

time, just under an hour. Every hour

we will get an updated exit poll.

They are slightly unreliable. There

is a 5% margin for error. At around

0130 GMT, 130 in the morning Italian

time. That is when we will get a

definitive result which may give us

the shape of what has come out of

the polls. It will not necessarily

tell us the shape of the Government

because that can all be decided by

coalition discussions which may go

one for a very long time to come.

We

will see you in the coming hours.

Thank you very much.

Another earthquake struck Papua New

Guinea. This one is ranked 6.0 at

the depth of ten kilometres. That is

a week after an earthquake caused

landslides, damaged buildings

enclosed oil and gas operations. The

people are in need of supplies.

The German Chancellor,

Angela Merkel, is set

to form her fourth government,

after the centre-left

Social Democrats agreed

to join her conservatives

in a renewed coalition.

It brings an end to

the political uncertainty

since September's election.

Voters in Switzerland have rejected

a proposal to abolish the mandatory

licence fee for Public broadcasting.

In a referendum, more than 70% said

no to the change. The Swiss pay

almost $500 a year for the public

broadcaster. It broadcasts in all

four national languages.

Stay with us on BBC World News.

Still to come...

Tributes to the world's

first four minute miler,

as Roger Bannister dies

at the age of 88.

It was just a matter of seconds as

the very lurched onto her side.

The

hydrogen bomb. The Americans have

successfully tested a weapon whose

explosive force dwarfed that of the

bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

My heart

went bang and bang will stop the

constitutional rights of these

marches and their rights for

citizens of the United States, they

should be protected so they do not

get their heads broken and are sent

to hospital.

It is religious

controversy. Does it worry that it

will boil up when you get to the

States?

It worries me. I hope

everything will be right when you

get to the end of the day.

-- will

be all right.

This is BBC World News Today.

The latest headlines...

President Assad says the Government

assault on Eastern Ghouta must

continue with civilians fleeing the

rebel-held enclave.

Millions have been voting in the

election in Italy.

Not long to go now before

the film industry's

biggest event of the year

- the Oscars.

This year's event comes

with Hollywood still reeling

from the allegations of sexual

harassment and sexual

assault against several

high profile figures,

These are the live pictures. Camera

crews and genocide gathering outside

the red carpet area where pretty

soon we will see the stars parade.

-- and journalists.

Will Gompertz reports.

Here on a still concealed

Oscars red carpet, just

about everybody has got an opinion

about what is going

to happen tonight.

But what does a genuine Hollywood

insider, with her ear

to the ground think?

Does she expect there to be

a post-Weinstein reaction that might

change how Academy members vote?

I don't think so. Harvey Weinstein

has changed the scope of awards

season and what people ask about on

red carpets and what they wear, how

the whole industry is changing.

In terms of voting on the Oscars,

I don't think that there will be

a real effect on who wins

and who loses.

My daughter, Angela was...

I would be surprised

if Three Billboards repeated

its Bafta success

and won Best PPicture.

That movie is quite polarising among

American Academy members.

The Shape of Water,

Guillermo Del Toro's film, is one

that has won a lot of the precursor

awards that lead up to the Oscars,

so that seems to be sort

of a rising contender.

Who is going to win?

I would put my money on Get Out.

Chris was just telling me

how he felt much more

comfortable with my being here.

Noted.

What about Best Actor?

You cannot reason with a tiger!

Not when your head is in its mouth.

The front runner for Best Actor

is Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour,

for whom this is, in many ways,

possibly a lifetime

achievement award.

There is an outside contender,

Timothee Chalamet for

Call Me By Your Name.

He has kind of captured,

what I think of as the

ingenue spot this year.

This year it is seemingly held by a

beautiful young man.

Surely Francis McDormand

is a shoo-in as Best Actress for her

performance in Three Billboards

as a grieving, seething mother.

Her performance in Three

Billboards...

If there is any movie that sort

of captured the #MeToo movement

and the idea of female rage,

surely it is this one.

And what about Greta Gerwig

and her film Lady Bird?

Could she become just the second

woman in the history

of the Oscars to walk away

with the Best Director prize?

I think Greta Gerwig is a long shot.

I think her being nominated is

a milestone for a female director.

It has happens so rarely. Kathryn

Bigelow is the anyone who has won in

the category.

Three, two, one.

Ready?

Action!

Guillermo Del Toro is the person

I would put my money on.

This could indeed be the year

that The Shape of Water is the film

that makes the biggest...

Splash?

Will Gompertz, BBC News, Hollywood.

Let's go live to Hollywood. You are

looking stunning. We can see people

are riding behind you. What is your

sense, our people focused on the

films all the controversy?

It is

impossible to separate the two. This

is the culmination of the awards

season with the biggest awards yet

to come. People are celebrating some

of the most adverse range of movies

we have had for best picture

nominee. We have tragic comedies in

Three Billboards to romances in Call

Me By Your Name, and The Shape Of

Water. Among those films we have

seen a lot of diversity and

storylines talking about the

underdogs, the underrepresented,

capturing the culture right now.

There are very real controversy

surrounding the Oscars. The Me Too

movement is capturing the fact that

there has been rampant sexual abuse

in this industry which Harvey

Weinstein has come to symbolise.

Also the underrepresentation of

minorities in Hollywood. I expect in

a ceremony for all of that really to

come to light.

We can see the

excitement behind you already. Also

a change in the presenter line-up.

Casey Affleck has withdrawn, hasn't

he?

There has been a lot of conflict

because he has been accused of

sexual assault. He denied and said

they had settled the matter. That

was going to overshadow the

tradition of having the person who

won best actor present the best

actress award. He withdrew and said

he will not be attending the Oscars.

The Academy thanked him for that and

said they want the focus to be on

winners. Instead we are going to be

having Jodie Foster and Jennifer

Lawrence presents best actress and

also, for best actor, we're going to

have Jane Fonda and Heron Mellon --

Helen Mirren presenting that.

Thank

you very much.

We will of course bring

you all the winners

and the reaction from the red carpet

here on World News,

which kicks at 0100 GMT.

And you can find much

more on the Academy

Awards on our website.

Now the sport.

Talking of the red carpet it

certainly hasn't been rolled out in

Central London. The pressure has

increased on Arsene Wenger. Brighton

& Hove Albion were 2-1 winners over

the gunners. Record signing barmy

Yanks scored for Arsenal. Arsene

Wenger's sign of four points behind

Tottenham.

It took us a while to get

into the game. They were sharper us

on the ball. We made some defensive

mistakes. In the second half it was

all us but we could not find a goal.

We are going through a tough time.

Of course it is difficult at the

moment.

As tough as you can

remember, do you think, this week?

Three defeats back-to-back. It never

happened to me in my life. It hit me

on the confident side and you could

see the team at the moment struggles

a bit.

A Barnardo 's silver goal

proved the difference as Manchester

City extended their lead at the top

of the table to 18 points. The blues

managed just three shots on goal

throughout the game and are

languishing five points of the

Champions League qualification

places. Pep Guardiola is on target

to win the title in three different

countries.

18, a strong team, like

Chelsea, are still the champions. We

did not concede one shot on target.

Against the Chelsea players,

everybody was involved and I was

very happy.

Lionel Messi scored his

600th career goal from a wonderfully

struck free kick. They are eight

points clear of the division. The

Atletico defence only conceded 12

goals in 27 games. The Catalans

remain unbeaten this year. They

almost scored a late equaliser only

to have it ruled out for offside.

Elsewhere in Spain, Valencia lead

real Bettis in Sunday's other big

clash. The Fiorentina captain has

died after a sudden illness. The

Florence -based outfit was scheduled

to play Udinese. He joined the team

and made 58 appearances for them.

Sir Roger Bannister, the first man

to break the four-minute mile, has

died at the age of 88 foot he has

been described as one of the

inspirational figures will stop he

also won gold over the same distance

at the 1954 Commonwealth Games. He

later became a leading urologist and

was diagnosed with Parkinson's

disease in 2011. -- neurologist.

Andrew posse got a gold medal. --

Pozzi. It was a relief to the

British co-captain he made some

mistakes but held his nerve to claim

the gold. The Burundi athlete was in

a class of her own and defended her

title. The fastest time of the world

in 2018. Thank you.

Sir Roger Bannister -

the first man to run a mile

in under four minutes -

has died at the age of 88.

He set the record on a track

in Oxford in 1954 -

later winning the gold at the same

distance at that year's

Commonwealth Games.

Joe Wilson looks back at his life.

NEWSREEL:

25-year-old Roger

Bannister, third from the left.

There are some moments of sporting

history which become part

of the world's history.

He's decided this

is the right moment.

What Roger Bannister achieved

in 1954 was like a lunar landing

for 20th century sport.

Bannister's old friend and rival

Chris Chataway is in third place,

waiting to take over as pacer.

To run a mile and stop

the clock before it reached

four minutes in 1954,

this was a magical number,

a barrier of human achievement.

A feat that would redefine

what was humanly possible.

And it would fall to a young medical

student to achieve it.

After two-and-a-half laps,

Brasher gives way to Chataway.

Bannister, a superb tactician, has

suffered some criticism in the past

for adopting his own rather

unorthodox training methods.

But they are paying dividends now.

At this point it

becomes quite painful.

I overtake Chris Chataway

and begin the finish.

And here he comes.

Bannister goes streaking forward

with about 250 yards to the tapes.

Every stride counted.

The tape broke at three

minutes 59.4 seconds.

And Bannister has done it.

Though he is out on his feet,

his coach and team manager tell him

he has achieved his ambition.

It might have felt like the world

stopped when that clock stopped.

Four minute mile was a sporting

catch phrase everyone recognised.

There was certainly a feeling of it

being a national event and something

of a landmark for the country.

I am overwhelmed and delighted at

being able to do it today. I was

very lucky.

Sir Roger Bannister was

knighted in 1995. He regarded his

work as a neurologist as more

consistent. He described the gentle

irony when he was diagnosed with

Parkinson's disease. His training

would have been half an hour a day

on the cinder track. He was perhaps

sport's last great amateur. Sir

Roger Bannister, who