18/03/2018 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today.

I'm Lucy Hockings live in Moscow.

The headlines.

Vladimir Putin will lead Russia

for another six years.

TRANSLATION:

I can see trust and hope, hope

of our people that we will continue

working in the same way

with the same great results.

The exit polls show that with more

than half of ballots counted,

President Putin has almost

three-quarters of the vote.

He has also been speaking about the

poisoning of a Russian spy that has

led to a stand-off with the British

government.

TRANSLATION:

I learned

about it from the media, and the

first thing that came into my mind

is that if it was a military

operation, people would have died

straightaway.

I'm Karin Giannone in London.

Our other top stories.

After two months of fighting

and many deaths, Turkey drives

a Kurdish militia from the northern

Syrian city of Afrin.

Senior Republicans urge

President Trump not to close down

the Special Counsel investigation

into suspected Russian

collusion with his campaign.

Hello and welcome to Moscow, where

President Putin has indeed won a

fourth term in office. There were

eight candidates running in this

presidential election but there was

really no doubt that President Putin

was indeed going to win, when he has

done so convincingly. They have

already been seems of jubilation at

a pro-Putin rally. You can see the

Kremlin and Red Square behind me,

beyond that a big concert tape and

placed an ad with people

celebrating. The date of the

election was moved to today to

celebrate the fourth anniversary of

the annexation of Crimea. Let's take

you through some of the results. We

know there was an boating lake

allowances reported in some parts of

Russia but these are the official

figures we are starting to get now.

The exit polls showing 73.9% for the

Russian president Vladimir Putin,

absolutely eclipsing all of those

other candidates. And I think the

thing people will be talking about

around the world who are looking at

this election over the next few days

will be the turnout. Vladimir Putin

had wanted 70% in order to give the

result some legitimacy, and he

hasn't achieved that. What we are

hearing is that there has been a

turnout of 60% in this presidential

election, and that is down from the

last time Russians voted here in a

presidential election from 48% in

2016, in the Parliamentary

elections, which are often less, and

then in the presidential election in

2012, 60 5%, so Vladimir Putin may

indeed be disappointed with that,

and that is also with some stuff in

the ballots we have seen we will be

talking about in a moment. But first

I had mentioned the celebrations

that had been taking place here in

Moscow. Vladimir Putin arrived just

a short time ago to address his

supporters. Let's have a listen.

TRANSLATION:

I am a member of your team

and everyone who voted

today is one big team.

In this I can see the recognition

of what's being done

over the last few years.

I can see trust and hope, hope

of our people that we will continue

working in the same way

with the same great results.

Thank you for this wonderful

multi-million member team.

Thank you.

Success is waiting for us!

Vladimir Putin there and his

supporters.

Counting is under way in the Russian

presidential election.

A huge effort, you can imagine in a

Candreva size of this, 11 different

time zones, 97,000 polling stations

were open today across Russia. We

saw some scenes of cosmonauts

boating in space, even down in

Antarctica, polling stations were

open there. It has been an

incredibly busy day, quite festive

at some of the polling stations, I

was at one earlier, there were

people singing, a man with an

accordion, people playing sports as

well. There was all very festive,

but with a wrap-up of what has been

happening around the country for us,

here's our Moscow correspondent,

Steve Rosenberg.

It looked more like

a show than an election.

Russian polling stations

providing free entertainment

to boost the turnout.

Inside, you could cast a ballot,

and cast an eye at the art.

Pride of place here reserved

for a legendary Russian ruler,

who had battled the West.

The current leader is

facing international

pressure after Salisbury.

Still, Vladimir Putin

was relaxed as he voted.

I believe in the programme I am

offering my country,

the president said.

And his supporters agreed.

He is a genius, he says.

Putin wants Russia to

prosper and for Russians

to live in happiness.

It is thanks to Putin, she says,

that Russia still exists.

But, critics of the Kremlin said

the election was fixed,

that only those candidates who stood

no chance of unseating

Vladimir Putin were allowed to run.

The problem with Russia

is that there is no such thing

as Russian politics.

Politics has been eliminated

in Russia altogether.

There is only one political

institution in Russia

and that is the physical body

of Vladimir Putin.

Which is why the result of this

vote was never in doubt.

This election is less

about choosing a new president,

and more about reappointing

the old one.

The political system

Vladimir Putin has built ensures

he doesn't face any challenge.

He's set for a fourth

term in the Kremlin.

But these images will

embarrass the Kremlin.

Caught on CCTV, a woman stuffs

the ballot box at a polling box

at a polling station in Moscow.

Suddenly there are

two of them at it.

And something suspicious in Siberia,

during the vote count,

someone moves a tricolore

of balloons

so they cover over the camera.

Election officials say they will

investigate alleged violations.

But that won't change

who will be running Russia

for the next six years.

Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow.

So, as Steve was mentioning there,

Russia's key opposition leader

Alexei Navalny was banned from

running in this election, and he

said to his supporters that he

wanted them to boycott the election,

and what is interesting is that he

is very active on social media, and

many young people of course are

thought to have possibly not shown

up to vote because of record for

that boycott, but there are also

some young people passionate about

Putin and I spoke to one earlier,

Darius Sher over from United Russia

party.

You know what I will say that

you can come for example to south

arabia and say you guys have to be

democratic here - well you have

to come to Russia to be for example

international observers to see how

it works in Russia.

You as the international

community should

not humiliate our rights to vote

for the Putin that we

support as president.

Even if you don't like his policy -

we like his policy.

You have to respect our right

to choose our president

and you have to work with him -

because his citizens choose him.

So about 60% of the votes have been

counted, though there is some talk

of voting irregularity. Let's speak

to the co-chairman of the electoral

observers in Russia. Tell us about

what your observers saw today.

So

ordinary elections in Russia, maybe

you can give me more exact

questions.

What is an ordinary

election in Russia because that

would be very different to how we

see elections.

I know, but the main

problem is we don't have any

so-called alternative candidates and

elections are not interesting and

the same man has been running for 20

years, it is a boring procedure, so

they went to any expense to

entertain people, to invite them

with cheap goods, foodstuff,

entertainment, singing, dancing, all

that stuff, it is not elections, it

is just a sham.

What did your

electro observers see in terms of

the staffing of ballot boxes across

the country?

Actually ballot box

staffing was found by video

broadcast, not found by people on

the ground live because usually

fraudsters are afraid of any present

witnesses and so on. In the first

video you can see the policeman in

the corner, the policeman was

present. We have a report where a

policeman himself was stuffing. So

all sorts of people can participate

in the ballot box staffing in this

fraud, but not observers, observers

are a deterrent, and yes, over there

in the corner you will see behind

your titles a policeman with

shoulder straps, so yes, they are

doing, but not observers, observers

scare them away, real observers. Not

fake ones.

If your observers see

things like this happening, what do

they do?

In 2008 I found ballot box

staffing in 2008 in a Moscow school.

They pretended it was, they said,

let's look into that into the

evening, but before the evening they

said that the school was mind,

somebody planted a bomb inside the

school so it had to be evacuated,

and later they destroyed all

evidence, but I still have photo and

video of that. So their main idea is

to destroy evidence, but since we

have a lot of mobile phones now, and

boxes are transported, so it is very

hard to hide for them, and nobody is

punished. Since 2012, I can show you

hundreds of official videos, and

nobody is punished since.

Thank you

very much for joining us. We have

been hearing from President Putin,

and he has also given a press

conference. In the last hour or so,

he has been talking about this

diplomatic row between Russia and

the United Kingdom, he has said he

has only had about the poisoning for

the first time of Sergei Skripal and

his daughter, and the very first

time he heard about it was actually

in the media. TRANSLATION:

In relation to the tragedy

you mentioned, I learnt about it

from the media and the first thing

that came into my mind was that

if it was a military

operation, people would have

died straight away.

This is number one.

This is number one.

Secondly, Russia does

not have those weapons,

Russia has demolished

all its chemical weapons

under international

supervision, unlike some

of our partners who haven't done it

yet.

Vladimir Putin addressing what has

happened. Further developments to

bring you, international experts

from the chemical weapons body will

be arriving in the UK on Monday.

They will be testing samples in the

UK. We have been hearing from the

Russian ambassador to the EU and

also from Britain's Foreign

Secretary, Boris Johnson, with a

wrap-up of today's events on the

diplomatic fallout and everything

that has happened with Sergei

Skripal and the poisoning of him and

his daughter Yulia. Here's Daniel

Sandford.

Today, despite the bad weather,

troops and police officers continued

the delicate and dangerous work

of decontamination and preserving

the scenes in Salisbury.

It is clear now that the focus

of this investigation

is Sergei Skripal's burgundy BMW

car, with detectives

still seeking more information

on its movements on the day

of the nerve agent attack.

This morning, the Russian ambassador

to the EU chose to hint that Britain

might have been responsible

for the whole thing.

Porton Down, as we now all know,

is the largest military facility

in the United Kingdom that has been

dealing with chemical

weapons research.

And it's actually only eight

miles from Salisbury.

You are not suggesting that

Porton Down is responsible

for this nerve agent attack?

I don't know, I don't know.

Immediately afterwards,

on the same programme, this

was the Foreign Secretary's riposte.

This is not the response

of a country that rarely believes

itself to be innocent.

Their response has been a sort

of mixture of smug sarcasm

and denial, obfuscation and delay.

And with 23 diplomats due to leave

the Russian Embassy this week

And with 23 diplomats due to leave

the Russian Embassy this week,

after being expelled as spies,

the Foreign Secretary made his most

direct accusation yet that Russia

has been doing recent

nerve agent research.

We actually had evidence

within the last ten years that

Russia has not only been

investigating the delivery of nerve

agents for the purposes

of assassination, but has also been

creating and stockpiling Novichoks.

However, the Foreign Secretary then

had to concede that a wife

of a former minister under

Vladimir Putin had paid £160,000

in a Conservative Party auction

to play tennis with him.

Did the tennis game actually happen?

It did.

It did.

But the Labour leadership's position

on the Salisbury attack now seems

much closer to the government's

than it was in the

middle of last week.

Putin has questions to answer,

because this is highly likely this

could have been a state execution.

But what we don't do in this country

is that we don't leap

to conclusions without the evidence.

Tomorrow, international specialists

from the Organisation

for the Prohibition

of Chemical Weapons will arrive

at Porton Down to start their own

independent analysis of what left

Yulia and Sergei Skripal

fighting for their lives.

Daniel Sandford, BBC News.

So as we continue to see Russia

isolated on the international stage,

it is quite a different message here

in Moscow with Vladimir Putin

addressing his supporters as he wins

his fourth term in office, and he is

talking about rising to the

challenges that lie ahead, how

working together as a team is the

way forward here in Russia. 60% of

the votes counted will continue to

keep across all the development is

here in Moscow. For now, back to you

in the studio. Stay with us on BBC

World News Today. Still to come,

British MPs want to know more about

how a data firm that supported

Donald Trump's campaign used the

personal information of millions of

Facebook users.

Today we have closed the book on

apartheid.

More than 3000 subway

passengers were affected, nausea,

bleeding, headaches and a dimming of

vision, all caused by an apparently

organised attack.

The trip itself was on the pedestal

in the middle of the Cabinet here.

This was an international trophy and

we understand now that the search

for it has become an international

search.

Above all, this was a triumph of the

Christian Democrats of the West,

offering reunification as quickly as

possible, and that is what the

voters wanted.

You are watching BBC World News

Today.

Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad

has visited soldiers

in Eastern Ghouta -

an area his forces have been trying

to retake from the rebels.

These images - published on a Syrian

Presidency Facebook page -

show him surrounded by troops.

A monitoring group has confirmed

that government forces

and their allies now control some

80% of Eastern Ghouta.

Thousands more civilians

fled on Sunday.

But a pro-rebel website says

there's been relative calm

for the first time in a month.

The Turkish president says

the northern Syrian city of Afrin

is now under Turkish control

after its troops backed by Syrian

allies, entered the city centre.

Turkey has been engaged

in a two-month battle with Kurdish

fighters over the city,

in Northern Syria.

The Kurdish administration of Afrin

says its forces will now strike

Turkish and allied militia positions

at "every opportunity".

Mark Lowen reports from Istanbul.

The sound, not of battle,

but of celebration, Syrian rebel

fighters backed by Turkey,

taking the town of Afrin

after a lightning advance.

Their flags marked

the new order here.

The YPG, Kurdish militia,

had promised to fight

to the death in Afrin,

but in the end, their resistance

looked to melt away.

Afrin fell within hours,

the vestiges of the YPG ripped away.

In the name of God the merciful,

we are now inside Afrin

liberated from terrorism,

says this fighter, the city has

returned to the Syrian revolution

and we call on all residents

to come back.

The scars of this two month-long

offensive are everywhere,

a town in circles and besieged,

residents fleeing

the Turkish advance.

Over 150,000 people are said to have

escaped in recent days.

A triumphant President Erdogan

announced the success.

Turks from all sides have rallied

behind an offensive,

targeting a group they say

are linked to Kurdish

militants within Turkey.

Crushing age-old foes is a rare

uniting force in this

otherwise polarised country.

TRANSLATION:

Most of the terrorists

have already fled with their tails

between their legs.

Our special forces and members

of the Free Syrian Army are clearing

the remaining pockets of resistance.

In the centre of Afrin, symbols

of trust and stability are waving,

instead of the rags of terrorists.

As a Kurdish statue in central Afrin

was torn down, a bad omen

for the much needed reconciliation.

Many residents who will return

are Kurds, hostile to Turkey

and Syrian Arab fighters.

But in some areas of Afrin, the

rebels were welcomed as liberators,

the question now is whether Turkey

will push on to other YPG-held

territory, that will be

discouraged by the West,

which sees the Kurds

as vital allies.

But for now, victory

is being savoured, and eight

years into Syria's war,

each side continues to carve it up.

Mark Lowen, BBC News, Istanbul.

Well, this is clearly a military

victory for Turkey on a highly

celebrated anniversary for Turks,

the Gallipoli victory a century ago.

That was partly due to the YPG 's

strategic calculation, and they ever

accurate of the city, they enabled

the civilians more than 150,000

civilians evacuated from the city,

not calling them for a mass

resistance. They now vowed to expel

Turkish forces. There will be

implications that next to Afrin,

where US shoots Dunn troops.

Do you

believe we will see Turkey fission

to Syria against the YPG even

further?

For the East in your

freebies -- you freelys, it is

dubious. That is why that

calculation from Turkey, it is

simply because the United States

probably make a deal over the

region. But when Washington would

make such a deal, the eastern new

3-Ds would be the red -- the eastern

Yafridis would be the red line.

There is division in Washington,

close sources towards

micro-Washington and pesetas wrote

critical for the Raqqa security.

Others close to the State

Department, with the idea of the

negotiation with Turkey so that they

could secure the East new 3-D is,

and perhaps they would convince YPG

forces -- Eastern Yafridis, so they

could secure their games in the

eastern Yafridis where the SDF

forces are very much powerful and

secure.

The head of Cambridge Analytica,

the data firm used by Donald Trump's

election campaign, has been called

back before a committee of MPs.

They believe Alexander Nix has

fresh questions to answer

about the way his company used

the personal details of up

to 50 million Facebook users.

The social media giant,

which will also be asked to appear,

says it is conducting

a 'comprehensive review'

into the allegations.

The BBC's business correspondent

Joe Lynam has this report.

The idea that all women should

receive the same message...

Meet Alexander Nix.

He's the Eton-educated

boss of the data mining

company Cambridge Analytica, which

specialises in something called

psycho graphics.

That is an understanding

of your personality

because it's personality that drives

behaviour and behaviour obviously

influences how you vote.

But now a committee

of MPs thinks he may have

given Parliament false

statements about what his

company did with millions

of Facebook profiles.

He's been recalled

for more questions.

The Facebook boss

Mark Zuckerberg will

also be called.

It looks like Facebook

were trying to avoid

difficult questions about this

and people will rightly be

concerned, are there other data

breaches we

don't know about, how effective

are Facebook at stopping people

from taking data from their platform

and

using it in a way that suits them

and that Facebook can't control?

At the heart of this

was an app designed here in

Britain in 2014.

It was supposed to tell

you a lot more about your own

personality.

But if you logged in

using your Facebook profile it

allowed the app and its users access

to some very personal

data held on Facebook.

Most astonishingly, though, it

allowed the app access to all your

friends' personal data,

without their explicit consent.

And we're going to make

America great again...

It has been claimed

that Donald Trump's

campaign used personal data acquired

from Cambridge Analytica to try and

influence the election, something

flatly denied by the company.

And it was also at the top table

when the Leave.EU campaign

was launched in 2015 but now denies

that it did any

work at all on the

Brexit referendum.

But it does raise the issue though

of what happens when we

click "OK" online.

We see these quizzes

pop up on our Facebook

timelines, we think it will be fun,

which famous star am I...

But what you are really doing

is handing every bit of your profile

data onto a data collection service.

Much of this has come

to light because this

former Cambridge Analytica employee

Chris Wiley has now claimed Facebook

knew what data the company held

and how it could used.

Facebook strongly denies his

claims and has suspended

his own Facebook account.

The social media giant

said that it was doing

so because Mr Wylie had exploited

Facebook to harvest millions of

people's profiles.

Joe Lynam, BBC News.

Let's remind you of our main story.

President Putin has been

addressing his supporters in central

Moscow after being re-elected

for another six years in office.

With almost half of the ballots

counted, he's heading

for a landslide victory

with three-quarters of the vote.

But the was turnout lower than the

70% he had hoped for. From me Caryn

Giannone E, goodbye.