Hello, im karin giannone, this is outside source. The un warns of a humanitarian catastrophe in ethiopia after nearly two weeks of conflict in the tigray region. We are needing desperately to have access, unhindered, unconditional access to the refugees. 30 000 ethiopians have fled to neighbouring sudan almost half of them are thought to be children. Well look at the regional implications with our sub sa ha ran security analyst. The ceos of facebook and twitter defend the role of their tech platforms in the us election as they face a grilling from senators for the second time in three weeks. Terrifying scenes in colombia as a powerful category four hurricane hits its coast. Well be live from bogota. A development in kenya after an africa eye investigation uncovers shocking evidence of child trafficking in nairobi. Within 2a through 48 hours within 24 through 48 hours we should have arrested anybody who was involved in this issue. The un is warning that a full scale humanitarian crisis is unfolding in ethiopia where a two week conflict in tigray is threatening to descend into civil war. Up to 30,000 people have fled a government offensive by Ethiopian Forces against tigrays powerful local leaders the tplf. Hundreds have died in the fighting. The government has rejected calls for mediation and had this message earlier. They would not hesitate to strike anybody around, create havoc and hysteria in ethiopia and that would result in civil war. That is why the government and we now we keep on nicely go along. Its almost impossible to verify any information from tigray. Virtually all communications are blocked. These are the latest pictures we have from the region. This was broadcast on state media and is said to show celebrations of federal troops arriving into the town of raya alamata. The onslaught continues. Earlier Prime Minister abiy ahmed warned a three day deadline for local forces to surrender has now lapsed. He posted this message on facebook threatening final enforcement action in the coming days. In the past few hours hes said his troops are marching on the regional capital mekelle which is held by tplf. And hes claiming significant victories. 5 Million People live in tigray and aid agencies warn theyre unable to reach those who need help because of the deteriorating security situation. Heres the unhcrs assessment of what its hearing about the situation in tigray. We are needing desperately to have access unhindered, unconditional access to the refugees but also the other 600,000 among the population of ethiopians who depend on humanitarian assistance. We have had no responses so far. We also need access to bringing supplies, fewer, very little food in the market, cash is nonexistent because the banks have been closed for weeks now and so its really a dire humanitarian situation that we are facing that we have not seen for over two decades in this part of the country. This is playing out across ethiopias border. The un estimates 4 thousand refugees are crossing into sudan daily. Were told half of them are children. This Border Crossing is now overwhelmed. Were told many arriving here are hungry and exhausted from the heat. Conditions here are very poor. There is no electricity or clean water. This is the um raquba camp which once housed refugees during ethiopias famine in the 805. Its been closed since the 2000s but has reopened to cope with the influx. Heres another unhcr spokesperson dana hughes assessing the situation in sudan. Because this is an area that has not seen displacement as i said in light over a decade, almost two, this is an area where we had a Reception Centre for about 300 people and now it is trying to keep track of at least and help 15,000 people with more people coming. We have taken immediate steps working with the Sudanese Government to try and provide assistance. We have identified a site about 80 km away from the border that we are trying to at least set up a settlement to a camp someplace where people can go so we can give them immediate assistance. Refugees from tigray are also reporting horrific accounts of violence in the region including street shootings and machete killings. Heres dana hughes again. This happened so quickly and for the refugees that we are talking to, they are stunned. There is i woman that we interviewed and she talked about how less than a week ago her life was fairly normal and for five days she has been searching for her husband, she had to grab her children and people just ran. They randomly really nothing more than what was on their backs. So, i think at this point what people are hoping for is peace and to be safe and to be secure. Beverly 0chieng is our sub sa ha ran security analyst in nairobi. How reliable the information is that were getting from tigray and what more do we know what defence capabilities does this they later test appears to be that they have been able to make victories in eastern and western to ground and yesterday their voices except they have bombings in the capital and ethiopia has denied this in another statement and said it is making strikes and there have been no civilian casualties but we can see thousands of people have seen the conflict of the kind of stories coming out from un agencies and those arriving in sedan are quite terrifying. Ethiopia seems to be very keen to control the narrative of the contract. It started a new twitter account which issues daily updates and its called state of emergency and its difficult to co operate or verify that information. 0fficials
co operate or verify that information. Officials have made them issue statements and from rhetoric on the potential impact of the crisis both in ethiopia and the region and to issue threats. It does not seem as though there will be anything that focus on the humanitarian aspect of it or into will just cover that humanitarian aspect of it or into willjust cover that up and most of what we are seeing is a strong conflict. Local force, the tplf have how strong are they . The Northern Command which sparked off the conflict except to be one the most well equipped and very little clarity on what but it makes sense because the tp and f have been the governing force for many years. Nearly 27 years. But then the strategy is more of concern. Its creating what seems to be a long, drawn out conflict when the Prime Minister announced the operation he said no he limited the aims but the
tpf was also framing that a region which shows the potential of it brewing into a bigger conflict and trying in many and that leaders are very experienced in welfare when you think about the border while in 1998 to 2000 or even in the 19705 fighting against them and being able to co ordinate that power. So it is a strategic experience. Thi5 hasnt come out of the blue. Tensions have been building for years between the federal government and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front which runs tigray. That came to a head in september when the government postponed national elections. The tplf defied the ban and held a vote anyway. That was declared illegal. The tplf sees the federal government as illegitimate accu5ing Prime Minister abiy ahmed of trying to extend his time in office a charge mr abiy denies. Heres the analysis of Kalkidan Yibeltal in addis ababa on what support he has. The initial phase he seemed to enjoy it wide popularity but that appeared to have dwindled now and since this conflict broke out he seems to be enjoying some Popular Support at lea5t enjoying some Popular Support at least for example in the capital area today there were caused by his administration to show support for the defence voices and admin forces and there was a lot of clapping and shouting and screaming and singing. People are expressing their support. Last year Prime Minister abiy ahmed was celebrated worldwide when he won the nobel peace prize. When he accepted the award he called war the epitome of hell. The Financial Times tells us how this is playing out now the declaration of hostilities is likely to further undermine, beverly 0chieng is our sub sa ha ran security
analyst in nairobi. What a difference a year makes. That is sent to me true. It seems as though his credentials are severely eroding over the period when he had pendulums its been very strong rhetoric coming from him and right 110w rhetoric coming from him and right now he has projected any calls for talks and many people expect he would have paid the way for talks. He seems like a reform is coming but i suppose many of the changes he was implementing including to the political system in postponing the election, it raised a lot of political tensions and in some ways this conflict was getting into the kind of rhetoric that was brewing over all these months and perhaps a bit of a let down for many and he was going to be changing. Some breaking news to bring you. We have been looking at an announcement from the pentagon but it is announcing a withdrawal of troops from afghanistan. Us forces in afghanistan from around four and a half thousand to two and a half thousand before donald Trump Leaves Office. So, the united statesjust announcing that it will withdraw around 500 troops from iraq and afghanistan according to this copy to leave around two and a half thousand voices. So a major withdrawal of troops in afghanistan about 500 coming back from iraq and 2000 coming back from afghanistan before donald Trump Leaves Office on the 20th of january. We will bring you more on that here on outside sites. The kenyan government says it will make arrests within days after an investigation by bbc africa eye uncovered evidence of child trafficking. The year long investigation
found evidence of illegal child trafficking in street clinics and babies being stolen to order at a major government run hospital. Using undercover investigators to infiltrate one of the networks, a bbc africa eye team witnessed children being stolen and sold on the streets and offered for sale in illegal clinics. Kenyas minister for labour and social protection simon chella gooey said the whole government was shocked by what was uncovered. They stopped all of us right from the top, our president s, and the cabinets and everyone who as a parent or as a child would feel very disturbed with this kind of expose. The minister said immediate action was being taken, including by the police. The police are down investigating this matter and within 24 hours we should be seeing arrests of those who were seen the clip and we are going deeper than the clip. We also want to understand what the children officers were doing and what the administrators and their medical
superintendent of the facility and any other facility we are also testing the security of other facilities like the Maternity Home in nairobi and the Maternity Hospital and all other hospitals. Notjust nairobi but across the country. For more on this story head to the bbc news website. Thats at bbc. Com slash news. And youll find all the details of that year long special investigation by bbc africa eye into kenyan child trafficking rings. The bosesses of twitter and facebook have defended their approach to tackling misinformation during the us election campaign. Jack dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg faced lawmakers in the senate today. Part of the discussion was president Donald Trumps post election tweets and this stand off between
the New York Post and twitter in october over a story that made unverified claims about the president electjoe bidens son hunter. Both facebook and twitter had intervened to limit its spread. Heres the senator lindsey graham. What i want to try to find out is if youre not a newspaper or twitter 01 facebook then maybe you have editorial control over the New York Post . They decided and maybe for a good reason, i dont know, that the New York Post articles about hunter biden needed to be flagged, excluded from distribution or made hard to find. That, to me seems like you are the ultimate editor. Twitters Ceo Jack Dorsey acknowledged that his companys decision to block links to the New York Post article about hunter biden had been wrong. Here he is speaking to the republican senatorjohn cornyn. This was a policy around
distribution of hacked materials, we did not want twitter to be a distribution point for hacked materials. You do realise that by taking down that story you probably gave it to more prominence and more visibility than it ever would have gotten had you left it alone . We realise that and we recognise it as a mistake that we made both in terms of the intention of the policy and also the enforcement action of not allowing people to share it publicly or privately which is why we corrected it within 24 hours. Mr dorsey told the committee the company had labelled 300,000 tweets as misinformation during the campaign. He was also quizzed by senators about the labelling a number of President Trumps tweets with accuracy warnings. Here he is answering a question put by democrats they asked if that went far enough . 0ur our policy is focused on misleading
information and around the election on the civic process to provide greater context and to provide information so that people can make decisions around whats happening with the election and its three phases, if the run up to the election, it election day and also the phase we are in right now, past election. So our policy is in enforcement and we are focused on providing more information. Facebooks chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told the committee the company had conducted the largest Election Integrity effort by any firm in recent times. He was also asked about this group stop the steal which supported President Trumps unfounded claims of voterfraud. By the Time Facebook took it down, it had grown to 350,000 members. Heres what he had to say. 0ne one of ourtop one of our Top Priorities is making sure that people do not give them a platform to organise any violent or
civil unrest. And that was the basis under which we took down that group because there were a number of members who were posting potentially violent or encouraging violent comments that violated our policies. But Mr Zuckerberg defended facebooks action on a post by President Trumps former adviser steve bannon. That post called for top disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci and another Government Official to be beheaded. Twitter banned him, but facebook only froze his page. The content in question did violate our policies and we took it down. Having a content violation does not automatically mean your account gets taken down and the number of strikes varies depending on the type of offence so if people are posting terrorist content or Child Exploitation content then the first time that they do it then we will take down their account. For other things its multiple. James clayton has been following the hearings pressure and scrutiny coming from both sides of the political spectrum. That is right. Republicans we re very spectrum. That is right. Republicans were very much going on phyllis donald trump tweets. Twitter very, very happy to label all lot of the states particularly around voter this information now. President trump has said a lot of things about mass voter fraud. Thats trump has said a lot of things about mass voterfraud. Thats not actually true but twitter exercise that right to enable and the streets and republicans said was censorship. 0n the other end of the spectrum yeah but democrats saying that twitter and facebook are not doing enough to take down things like misinformation and things like hate speech and steve bannon was not banned from facebook after seeing doctor 0uchi should be beheaded. So you have this difficult situation. At one pointjeff dorsett said they are an impossible situation because
one side wants than to censor and the other side does not think they are censoring enough. So a difficult situation for social media companies. Tough questions about the a nswe is companies. Tough questions about the answers they could take and what about they did not do. Remind us of what we have seen in the weeks the weeks since. Remind us what we had seen weeks since. Remind us what we had seen twitter and facebook doing to combat this information. They have been labelling a lot of tweets and posts. Twitter has actually stopped people from retreating some Donald Trumps tweets. 300,000 tweets that twitter had ta ken trumps tweets. 300,000 tweets that twitter had taken down. We learned that today. I not that was set today by republicans was this a grey area about what is and is not misinformation around voter fraud. So for example posts on a you vote by post and he said that was open to voterfraud. By post and he said that was open to voter fraud. Without actually accusing anyone of voter fraud, should not be labelled . Twitter has been labelling some of the streets. Republicans said that went too far. Meanwhile, facebook has had to take down a string of racist and misogynistic posts about the us Vice President elect kamala harris. The posts were removed after the bbc alerted facebook to three groups that regularly hosted such material. James clayton broke the story. You have written an article on the website about it. There misogynistic abuse that she got. Some of it was absolutely terrible. Facebook says it takes down 95 of all hate speech before they are likely to ask but i would discover a few groups that arent particularly friendly to, i have a high risk and some of the abuse was horrendous. That she should be deported because her mother is from india and shes not american because her mother is indian and father is jamaican and sexually explicit stuff and stuff that i cannot describe on television. So when Mark Zuckerberg says they are doing all this stuff about being proactive this is that a list of the hanging fruit. If they cannot take on hate speech around the next Vice President , its very
difficult to see how they are doing a good job elsewhere on the platform as well. And your article is on our website. Thank you very much. Central america is being battered by the second severe storm to hit the region in as many weeks. Tens of thousands of people in hurricane iotas path have been left without drinking water. Aid workers are warning of an impending humanitarian disaster. These aerial images show the eye of hurricane iota from a Us Air Force Plane above. It made landfall as a category four storm, but has downgraded as it tracks towards honduras. Heavy rain is causing severe flooding in many areas and the Us National Hurricane centre has also warned about the possibility of landslides. These are the latest pictures that have just come in from nicaragua. Thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes and there are fears of food shortages. Lets hear from someone in the capital, managua. Margarita antonio is a coordinator for the International Indigenous womens forum. There was a lot of roofs flying off and a lot of trees down on the ground but most of all a lot of roofs and in the middle of this storm there was a huge activity helping people to leave their house because some people stayed at home thinking they would be safe as with the previous hurricane but when the roof went off they had to look for help and the firemen came and helped people to move to a safer place. A similar situation happened with the hospital. The Regional Hospital was removed to a safer location and in the middle of the storm the roof of the institution flew off and they had to move all patients to a safer place which happened to be the Government House so as far as we were in contact i must say there was no
fatality and no information of anybody that lost their life. Iota is the strongest atlantic hurricane of the year. And this season has broken the record for the number of named storms. Authorities have run right through the english alphabet in naming them and theyve now reached the ninth letter of the greek alphabet. This is what the storm looked like when it hit the colombian island of san andres earlier, bringing strong winds and flooding. The island has no power and roads remain blocked by debris and fallen trees. The colombian island of providencia was also devastated. Authorities say 98 of infrastructure on the island has been destroyed, and at least one person was killed. Daniel pardo is with bbc mundo in colombia and joins me now from bogota. What is the progress of the storm . Imaginei what is the progress of the storm . Imagine i am thousand miles from the
storm here and the weather, thats why im inside, it is quite grim here as well. We had been seeing storms and rain all over the week and thats why its a cell bank. As you are insane, 20 20 is the most active Hurricane Season on record with 29 different storms so far in the atlantic and base hurricane is one of the strongest. 0bviously the atlantic and base hurricane is one of the strongest. Obviously the category changes from four to five but whats important here is that more than doing is the possibility of catastrophic damage in terms of fighting and mudslides sides in this region of Central America. Flapping. What action are people taking as it approaches . Are they leaving or staying . So, here in columbia these items you are mentioning, there has been on of debate because there was no
evacuation whereas in Central America in nicaragua out tens of thousands of thousands of people who we re thousands of thousands of people who were taking somewhere else. What is the about face is that in this part of Central America, two weeks ago another hurricane that had category of four or five took place there and killed around 200 people so the situation is pretty bad and people we re very situation is pretty bad and people were very conflicted. Thank you very much. The very latest on the progress of the hurricane there. A reminder before we go the breaking news he had in the past you minutes. We have been hearing that pentagon has ordered for the trip withdrawals from iraq and afghanistan. Christopher miller may be announcement during news conference. They will withdraw 2000 from afghanistan before donald Trump Leaves Office and thats really what the number articulate a half thousand overall and withdraw around
500 troops from iraq leaving a similar number, two and ive thousand there. Hello there. Its been a very mild so the past couple of days. And we hold onto the mild theme into tonight but then it set to turn much colder from wednesday afternoon onwards. Tonight mild, breezy and dry for most but we still have some rain around. Thats tied in with this weather front effecting the northwest of scotland. Itll spread further northwards into the northern aisles during the course of the night. Elsewhere its going to be dry, rather cloudy. Some spots of drizzle and parts of the Western Hills breezy too. Stays very wet overnight northern isles, northern and western scotland on into the western parts of Northern Island with up you will see those temperatures very mild this time a year. 14 degrees with the overnight lows. Area of low pressure sits to the northwest of the country on wednesday. Stays very wet here but this cold front will start to spread eastward through the course of the day. A wet start out west dry, cloudy and mild in the east eventually that rain band will continue to journey through the course of the day. Behind it, skies will brighten up. And there will be some blustery showers but it will be cold behind that front single figure values. But on the front and ahead of it its stays relatively mild. At least until the towards the latter part of the afternoon. During wednesday night the cold air wins out. Arctic plunge sinks southward right across the country and it stays cold into thursday. Its a short lived cold spell because theres weather front will start to move in during friday. That will introduce milder air once again. Lots of isobars on the charts in the eastern side of the country. Thursday is a cold start for most windy with gales across northern and eastern areas. Tend to ease down through the day so the ridge of High Pressure builds and and as that ridge builds and it was dark to kill off the wintry showers which will be affecting central and northern parts of scotland. Here will really be quite cold when we factor in the wind. Further south eight to ten degrees. Friday that weather system pushes off the atlantic. Although its a dry, chilly start on the eastern areas it will start to turn wetter, windier and gradually milder as we move through the day as temperatures back into the 12 and 13. Quite chilly across the east. As we head on into the weekend, stays windy particularly in the northern part of the country. Turns bit cooler here on sunday. Generally, south, it will stay mild. Hello, im karin giannone, this is 0utside source. The un warns of a humanitarian catastrophe in ethiopia after nearly two weeks of conflict in the tigray region. We are needing desperately to have access, unhindered, unconditional access to the refugees. 30,000 ethiopians have fled to neighbouring sudan almost half of them are thought to be children. Well look at the regional implications. The us has announced further troop withdrawals from afghanistan before president Trump Leaves Office 2,000 will leave. Scotland announces tougher virus restrictions closing restaurants, pubs and non essential shops in glasgow and three other areas from friday. Well take a look at china and the World Health Organisations search for the source of the covid 19 pandemic. Exactly one year ago today, what may have been the first case of coranavirus was diagnosed in china. The article from the South China Morning Post citing Chinese Government data, says the first case of covid 19 can be traced back to the 17 november 2019. The person is said to be a 55 year old living in hubei province. The official position of the chinese authorities, we should add, is that the first case wasnt confirmed until december last year one month later. Fast forward to today more than 1. 3 Million People have died from covid 19, with more than 55 million confirmed cases globally. The us has been the worst hit, with over 11 million cases and nearly a quarter of a million deaths. But in china, where the coronavirus outbreak began, they have reported fewer than 5,000 deaths, and just over 92,000 cases. Authorities there say there is currently no domestic transmisison of the virus. President xi jinping spoke earlier today about the fight against the virus beyond chinas borders. Translation coordination and come together to meet the covid 19 challenge. The coronavirus is still causing havoc in many places. Securing a worldwide victory against the pandemic remains an uphill journey. What is important is that we put peoples life and health 1st. It is important to step up
international coordination and response and support who does crucial leadership role in this endeavor. Hello, what is the chinese view of how the rest of the world has tackled the pandemic . Well, increasingly china has been ramping up increasingly china has been ramping up this dialogue that it has handled the virus better than anywhere else. When ive been seeing in official media reports at the World Health Organisation its on to say that china has taken an active response. Angina has been putting this out through channels and really highlighting this. China also wants to use the World Health Organisations own press conferences and highlight that there are still problems particularly in new york and in the us. We are talking about cases continuing to be on the rise. Medical centres and Health Workers being under a lot of pressure. But also not necessarily still restricted just to those two
continents. Theres also been increased Media Coverage in china that the threat of the virus re entering the country. Can delete not particularly buy goods china has been putting out a lot of reports recently bearing in mind that it is saying no new domestic cases. Very much highlighting that is still identifying coronavirus is reaching china via goods. Theyre saying theyre from europe, latin america, south asia, everywhere, really. China is saying that Everyone Needs to basically unite with the World Health Organisation, take the approach similar to chinas. State with us. State with us. The World Health Organization has of course begun an investigation into the origin of the covid 19 pandemic, sending a small team to china injuly to begin the groundwork. But since then its made very little progress. This article in nature discusses the sensitive political situation where tracking a definitive source is concerned. It says the initial investigation will probably be conducted by chinese researchers with International Experts travelling to the country only later. The new york times
published this article saying the who has let china take charge, concealing concessions made to china which may have sacrificed the best chance to unravel the viruss origins. Today Chinas Foreign Ministry said finding the source of the outbreak would be complicated and it is best left to scientists. Translation we have seen repeated reports around the world on when and where the Novel Coronavirus broke out. It once again proves that tracing the origin of the virus is a complicated scientific issue. What should be solved by scientists with Global Research photo aiming at finding the viruses animal reservoir and its transmission route. This is and its transmission route. This is a forewarning of the future risk of viral outbreak as well as protecting the life and health of the people around the world. Tell us a bit more about what the view is in china about the source of the outbreak in the first place. Chinese media have basically been repeating this message yes, it is complex and it is going to take time to work out exactly what the sources. To work out exactly what the sources. At the same time papers have been highlighting these cases entering by goods. This is got people thinking right back to the beginning of the year when they first heard about coronavirus. It will hand, right in the centre of china. A lot of the early cases were related to a seafood market. This is got a lot of people talking about whether there was a possibility that the virus may have entered the country rather than being the source. Country rather than being the source. Rather than originating in wuhan. Via another country, this is what a lot of people are thinking at the moment. But the government media is basically following what the Foreign Ministry is saying and basically saying that its going to ta ke basically saying that its going to take time and that china is being active and is working with the World Health Organisation for that and that everything will come out leanne. Thank you very much. Lets bring you back
to the breaking news that we heard lets bring you back to the breaking the last hour. Donald trump will drastically reduce the us military presence in afghanistan before he leaves office. The pentagon announced a short while ago that the number of us forces in afghanistan will fall from 4,500 to 2,500. President trump had previously threatened to carry out a complete withdrawal before christmas. Heres acting defense secretary christopher miller. Together we have mourned the loss of more than 600,000 troops who gave their lives. In afghanistan and iraq. And we will never forget the more than 52,000 who bear the wounds of warand all more than 52,000 who bear the wounds of war and all those who still carry it scars. Visible and invisible. In light of these tremendous sacrifices and with great humility and gratitude to those who came before
asiam gratitude to those who came before as i am formally announcing that we will implement President Trumps orders to continue our repositioning of forces from those two countries. By of forces from those two countries. By january 15, 2001, excuse of forces from those two countries. Byjanuary15, 2001, excuse me, iam clearly thinking of where they started in 2001. Byjanuary15, 2021 our forces, started in 2001. Byjanuary15, 2021 ourforces, their size in afghanistan will be 2500 troops. Our force size in iraq will also be 2500 by that same date. White House National security adviser Robert Obrien has given more details tx sot those truths will defend our embassies in agencies doing important work in those countries. They will enable our American Airlines in their Important Missions in those countries. They will defend our diplomats and they will detour our diplomats and they will detour our foes. By may it is president
trumps hoped that they will all come home safely and in their entirety. We hope to speak to Gary Odonoghue in washington about that announcement of the sharp reduction of us troops in afghanistan and iraq. We will bring you gary as soon as gary as soon as we gary as soon as we got him. Now, an update on the coronavirus in the uk. Well start in scotland because the Scottish Government has imposed the highest level of restrictions on eleven areas with high infection rates. They include glasgow, north and South Lanarkshire and west lothian. That means more than 2 Million People will live under stricter measures which will last for three weeks, starting this friday. Heres scotlands first minister, nicola sturgeon. The infection rate in all of these areas remains stubbornly and worryingly high. At these levels we simply do not have the assurance we need that the hospitals and icus services will be able to cope as we get deeper into the winter. Our scotland editor sarah smith has more from glasgow. If transmission rates dont go down,
if case numbers are still rising they will have no choice than to keep these tough restrictions place. Everybody is really hoping that level four restrictions will tackle some of the most stubborn areas of scotland. If it works and we get more freedom over christmas of course everybody will be very grateful. Some are warning even there three week reset could be enough to send them to the wall. Now at level four restrictions really are quite onerous. They are pretty much the same as the current lockdown rules that you have across england. But unlike england and she was really keen to stress this, its not a 1 size fits all lockdown across the country for the up those areas like highlands and the islands and murray where theyve got lower transmission rates well they dont have to live with these really tough restrictions. But if you got different rules in different parts of the country then that could cause problems. Thats why the Scottish Government are going to make it illegal to travel outside your local council area. They going to put that into law
by the end of the week and so you not only allowed out of your house for essential and if youre not allowed outside your local Authority Area for any reason unless it was absolutely essential. Thats to try and stop people of high infection areas spreading to other areas. Next, england. The government is reviewing the countrys three tier system, amid calls for measures to be strengthened when the National Lockdown ends on the 2nd of december. Heres the Health Secretary being asked about it earlier. Can he confirm that its the governments intention to impose a tougher restriction on tier1 areas post this lockdown . Mr speaker, it is too early to do the analysis that the honourable gentleman requires. Of course we remain vigilant. Lets get more on this from our health editor, hugh pym. We heard yesterday from a senior official or Public Health england that a slight tightening of within each tier might well be necessary through the winter. Never mind in the run up to christmas. She said Susan Hopkins said that tier1 really hadnt worked at all only some parts of tier 2 had worked. And the most effective set of restrictions were in tier 3. Tier 3 plus added example in liverpool with more widespread closures than the governments basic baseline. That they have begun to workjust before the lockdown. So administers will have to decide which areas go into which tier, after december the 2nd whether they will be tighter in some areas and then if there is going to be any relaxation in the run up to christmas how that will be managed and whether they will be immediate tightening straight after christmas. The Cabinet Office are looking at all theres im told. They are looking at the case data each day. They want to be able to see that cases are coming down. Because of the lockdown in england that probably wont become clear until later this week. Lets talk about some of the numbers the government is looking
at excess deaths. Thats the difference between deaths this year and the average number over the past 5 years. The uk has recorded almost 71 thousand excess deaths since the pandemic started most of them occured in the first wave this spring. But this is interesting. The most recent data shows there are big variations in regions. In north west england, wales and Northern England deaths are about a third higher than normal. In scotland, they re 12 per cent above average. The east of england has seen a 6 per cent incease while london has seen no difference at all. Heres the Royal Society for Public Health with one explanation for those variations. Its like the northwest, it still remains much, much higher than areas like in the southeast. What that meant was when we came into autumn and school have been back, infection started to increase at a much higher level. We are seeing those high levels
in these areas much higher mortality and excess death rates. A reminder of the breaking news weve had in the past few minutes. The us pentagon has announced further troops withdrawals how sharp gary . Well, you are looking at a reduction of almost half in afghanistan. There are around for a half, 5000 american troops in afghanistan. That number will come down to about two and half thousand. And then iraq, they are looking at a withdrawal of around 500 troops down from three and have thousands of it in line with what weve been expecting for the last few days. And certainly the pentagon is expecting to do that by january the 15th. Five days before President Trump stops being president. It is in line with many of the things hes wa nted in line with many of the things hes wanted to do. This is consistent in
terms of his policy. But it has raised a lot of concerns not least with the secretary general naito who is concerned about the destabilising nature of that kind of speedy withdrawal in afghanistan. It is also drawn some concern even from people like mitch mcconnell, republican leader in the senate who said it might have a negative effect on americas relationship. This is something the president has vowed to do for some time now. Hes also suggesting, putting some pressure on the future administration i think that those numbers should come down to zero. I mean zero by may of next year. How america would plan to protect its diplomatic and strategic trade interest in all that sort of thing in those circumstances is unclear. But that is certainly the ambition. We had heard donald trump threatening to perhaps a complete withdrawal by christmas. We havent had that. Why do we think donald trump has decided to announce is
now . He is still the president. Thats important to note. It certainly is something thatjoe biden has acknowledges that one president as a time as he said. Untiljanuary president as a time as he said. Until january 20 at president as a time as he said. Untiljanuary 20 at noon donald trump is commander in chief. And he has the right to do these things. At this point time. As i say, its not inconsistent with what hes wanted to do before. There has been a lot of pressure, a lot of resistance. Its part of the reason there was a clear out at the pentagon just after the election when he got rid of the secretary of defense, mark esper and installed his own person there along with a whole bunch of other people at the top of the administration because of that resistance. This is not unexpected. Although it was to cause a lot of concern i think in military and diplomatic circles. Compared to the number of that we saw in afghanistan and iraq this is
a tiny fraction. They are a tiny fraction when you think what where they are hundred and 30,000 troops in afghanistan . Huge numbers. Things have changed. There has been a sort of peace deal with the taliban. Although they are still continued to breach that deal. And there are a lot of civilians killed in afghanistan in october and are not particular. Still big security concerns. And big concerns about the maturity in a sort of normal sense of the Afghan Security services. And the arm forces they are and whether or not they can take on this role without the sort of supervision, the training that the American Forces have been giving them. There are lots of questions to be asked and answered. This is in a sense, donald trump fulfilling one of his legacy issues, if you like. Foreign entanglements, getting out of
foreign wars, getting out of the middle east was up all these things we re middle east was up all these things were high up on his agenda. Even though there have been in other parts of the middle east some increases in numbers of troops. Gary, thank you very much. Stay with us on outside source still to come. German Police Arrest 3 people in connection with a daring jewellery heist from a Dresden Museum last year. The bbc understands that the former labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is to be re admitted to the Party Following his suspension for downplaying a report into its handling of anti semitism complaints. Mr corbyn has said in a statement that he had not intended to belittle those problems. Heres iain watson i think it was inevitable not necessarily because of the statement but the ball at the top of the party
did not want this to become a running source. Certainly those on the left of the party were gearing up the left of the party were gearing upfora campaign the left of the party were gearing up for a campaign to getJeremy Corbyn reinstated. I think discussions were held behind the scenes before he the disciplinary panel. National executives met this afternoon. Its certainly possible it could have reached a different conclusion. Because some people, evenin conclusion. Because some people, even in the left of the party or mr corbin swing of the party has been pressing him to apologise for his earlier comments. He didnt do that. What he did do is issue a clarification. That clarification went along these lines, initially hid said that the problem had been dramatically overstated by political opponents. It was that got him suspended from the labour party. Sir keir starmer the current labour leader suggested that those who said the problem was exaggerating were pa rt the problem was exaggerating were part of the problem themselves. He supported that suspension. The clarification said that concerns
about anti semitism were not exaggerated, not overstated. And mr corbin said he wasnt trying to belittle those concerns. So he simply explained that he believed the vast majority of Labour Party Members were deeply opposed to anti semitism. That is what he was trying to communicate at the time. It looks as though that clarification has helped get him reinstated. He was also reminded of labours values but there will be people who believe that further sanctions should have been taken againstJeremy Corbyn given that he presided over that period of labours history where complaints about how anti semitism was handled in the party. Particular controversial. This is outside source live from the bbc newsroom. Our lead story is . The us has announce further troop withdrawals from afghanistan before president Trump Leaves Office. 2000 will leave. Some of americas top computer scientists have rebutted president Donald Trumps claims about voter fraud in the election. In a letter, the 59 experts said to our collective knowledge, in the last few days, much of President Trumps criticism of the election has centered on a supplier of Voting Machines called dominion voting systems. Heres one tweet from last week dominion to be clear, theres no evidence that this has happened. The department of homeland securitys Cybersecurity Agency has said as much, and twitter has flagged the tweet. Dominion also put out a Statement Last week, saying Christopher Giles from bbc reality check is with me now just tell us what the claims are in
more detail. First its important to mention that this is the latest example President Trump putting into question the integrity of the election. He has, the campaign has claimed that thousands of dead people voted which they havent. It also claims that a poll watchers werent access to accounts, which they were. The claim is at 2. 7 people have their votes deleted. We looked into this and have found that this is not correct. And the data comes from a group called addison research. Addison research have responded by disputing this and saying there is no election fraud. There is also a claim that michigan, a battleground state, flipped votes from trump to biden. We also looked into this and it turns out that it was a human error and state Officials Say that this human error
wasnt seen in any other county in the states. The fact that these 59 scientists have felt the need to come out and write this letter, i suppose it shows just how pervasive and persistent these disinformation claims are. Exactly. They said that this election was the most secure in history. This is also been echoed by International Observers who say that baseless allegations by the president actually create mistrust in democratic institutions. I also think its important to note that when looking at disinformation, a lot of this starts at the fringes of the internet filled with conspiracy theories. Its amplified and it finds its way to more mainstream accou nts finds its way to more mainstream accounts and trumps twitter. That is doing that this is something we found many times. Christopher, thank you very much. Christopher, thank you very much. Berlin police have arrested three men suspected of carrying out an audacious jewellery heist
at the one of the worlds oldest museums. A year ago, more than a dozen diamond encrusted items vanished from the museum in dresdens royal palace. Experts said the value of the stolen items was too great to be calculated. This cctv shows the raiders smashing their way into the museum last year. Today 1600 officers some of whom were heavily armed raided apartments and garages in berlin hoping to recover the jewels. The three suspects are said to be members of the so called remmo clan a family linked to major organised crime. Some of its members were convicted in february of another high profile museum break in, in berlin. Police say they are still hunting two more men over the dresden heist. Heresjenny hill in berlin explaining the background to the stunning break in. This is a Big Development it seems in the case which really shocked the country when it happened to stop not least because of the worth of what was stolen, historical treasures said they are worth to be at the
time incalculable, in measurable said the museum authorities. Also because of the audacity of the crime. And the thieves managed to create a partial electricity blackout at the museum before smashing their way through windows and into the green vault of the state museum where we saw them on cctv coverage. Smashing their way into a glass case with an axe before they managed to get away with these priceless items. They managed to get away with these priceless items. Asjenny said, the haul from the dresden raid included rubies, emeralds, sapphires and a shoulder piece containing a famous 49 carat white diamond. But despite todays arrests, Dresden Police said there was not much hope of recovering the historical artefacts stolen. Translation the artwork a mention in the warrants i think would be extremely lucky to find anything almost a year after the crime. Hope dies last for now we are just happy
that the arrests have gone so well. Thanks for watching outside source ill be back at the same time tomorrow. Hello there. Its been very mild for the last couple of days. We hold onto the mild theme into tonight. Then it is set to turn much colder from wednesday afternoon onwards. Tonight mild, breezy and dry for most but we still have some rain around. That is tied in with this weather front affecting the northwest of scotland. It will spread a little bit further northwards into the northern aisles during the course of the night. Elsewhere it is going to be dry, rather cloudy could see some spots of drizzle across Western Hills. Stays very wet overnight for the northern isles, northwestern scotla nd northern isles, northwestern scotland and into the western parts
of Northern Island. Youll see those temperatures very mild for this time of year 11 to 14 degrees with the overnight lows. Area of low pressure since to the northwest of the country on wednesday. Stays very wet here but this cold front will start to spread eastward through the course of the day felt on a wet start out west, dry, cloudy and mild in these. Eventually that rain band will journey eastward in these. Eventually that rain band willjourney eastward through the course of the day for that p hundred skies will brighten up. There will be blustery showers but it will be colder here behind that front. Single figure values but on the front and ahead of it it stays relatively mild. At least in towards the middle, latter part of the afternoon. Wednesday that cold air wins out. Arctic air across the country and it stays cold into thursday as well. A short lived cold speu thursday as well. A short lived cold spell because this weather front will start to move in during friday. That will introduce mild air. Lots of isobars on the chart towards the eastern side of the country for the thursday is a cold start for most windy with scales across northern
and east. Ten to ease down through the day as a ridge of High Pressure builds in full stop as that ridge bills and it will start to kill off the wintry showers which will be affecting central and northern parts of scotla nd affecting central and northern parts of scotland put up here it really will be quite a cold day. Factor in the wind further south eight to 10 degrees. Friday at that weather system pushes and of the atlantic, although its a dry, chilly start across northern and eastern areas it will start to turn weather, graduate mild as we move through the day for top temperatures back into twirls and thirteens out west still quite chilly across the east. As we head on into the weekend it seems windy particularly the northern half of the country for top its going to be cooler here on sunday for the generally in the south it will stay mild. This is bbc news, im tim willcox. The headlines at 8. Tough new covid restrictions for parts of scotland which wont be lifted until a fortnight before christmas. More than two Million People are affected. These decisions will give us the best possible chance, albeit in a limited and careful way, of being able to ease restrictions in all parts of scotland for christmas. The Health Secretary says he cant confirm which restrictions will be in place once the lockdown in england ends at the beginning of next month, amid reports the tier system could be strengthened. The former labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, says hes pleased to be readmitted to the Party Following his suspension last month over his reaction to a report on anti semitism. The spanish businessman
paid £21 million