this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. the headlines at 2pm. home secretary amber rudd calls on technology firms such as whatsapp to allow security services access to encrypted messages in terrorism cases. there should be no place for terrorists to hide. we need to make sure that organisations like whatsapp and others do not provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate. the westminster attacker khalid masood acted alone, say the police. his motive may never be known. detectives confirmed the attack lasted just 82 seconds. the family of the police officer who was killed, pc keith palmer, has thanked the people who tried to save his life. they say they're grateful he did not die alone. more than 30 people have been injured — two seriously — after a suspected gas explosion on merseyside. police clamp down on anti—corruption protests across russia main opposition leader alexei navalny is among those arrested.

also in the next hour: the beginning of the end for mercedes‘ dominance of formula one? ferrari's sebastian vettel pips lewis hamilton to the chequered flag in the opening race of the season in melbourne — his first win since 2015. and in half an hour — a look back at the week in parliament. good afternoon. the home secretary, amber rudd, has said the government will not shrink from taking action to remove material from the internet which could help terrorists. ms rudd also said the security services needed access to encrypted material on platforms such as the messaging service, whatsapp. it was used by the westminster attacker shortly before he killed four people last wednesday. nick beake reports.

an attack at the heart of london and it is chaotic aftermath. scotland yard believes all this was the work of one man acting alone. but was khalid masood encouraged in some way? he was active on the messaging app whatsapp on his phone just seconds before he struck but the police are unable to see the content of these encrypted messages and in an interview this morning the home secretary said social media companies must do more to help the authorities. it is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide. we need to make sure that organisations like whatsapp and there are plenty of others like it do not provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate. it used to be people would steam open envelopes or listen in on phones when they wanted to find out what people were doing, legally, through warrants, but in this situation we need to make sure the intelligence services have the ability to get into in situations like encrypted whatsapp. and her message was supported

by the man running the eu crime—fighting agency. i agree with the call for changes to be made. what the solution for that is for her and other lawmakers to decide but from my point of view i would agree something has to be done to make sure we can apply a more consistent form of interception of communication in all parts of the way in which terrorists invade our lives. all messages sent on whatsapp have end to end encryption which means they are scrambled and even if they are intercepted data cannot be read. but whatsapp, which is owned by facebook, said it had a duty to protect the private communications of its billion users worldwide. here at westminster at the tributes to pc keith palmer and the other victims continue to grow. the metropolitan police have now released more details about what was a brief but deadly assault. at 2:40pm on wednesday afternoon

khalid masood mounts the pavement on westminster bridge. he drives on and 30 seconds later crashes into the palace of westminster. the first 999 call is then received and half a minute later khalid masood is shot dead. a rampage lasting 82 seconds from start to finish. but for the police it is an ongoing and complex investigation. they warn they may never understand why khalid masood carried out the attack, which has carried criticism of the prevent strategy, the current government policy for combating extremism. i think in its current form it has huge problems, it is broken, the brand is toxic. there are questions about the training and the trainers and the level of quality of training within schools, how it is being implemented on the front line and therefore what i have asked for is a pause, an independent review. any changes will be too late

for the victims of the westminster attack including pc keith palmer. his family have thanked those who tried to save him and say they have been overwhelmed by the love and support they have received. merseyside fire and rescue say a suspected gas explosion in the wirral last night caused extensive damage and that it could be several days before local people are allowed back into their homes. dozens of people were hurt by the blast and several buildings collapsed. the scale of the devastation shows just how powerful the explosion was. one building, housing three businesses, totally destroyed. this is what it looked like before last night. the blast was heard up to six miles away. the sound of the building blowing up was captured by a car's dashboard camera. explosion what was that?! two people were taken to a trauma unit in liverpool with serious injuries.

32 others were treated at hospitals in wirral and chester. there is a multitude of injuries that have happened but the two patients that have gone through to the major trauma unit at aintree, they have significant injuries. the emergency services won't speculate on the cause of the blast but a number of local people had said they smelt gas yesterday and on friday national grid engineers were on the scene. this incident is likely to be protracted, this is likely to last several days, very significant damage as you can tell. so it will be some time before people will be allowed back into their homes. some people whose homes had to be evacuated spent the night in a local church. nearby roads are likely to be closed for some time. a little earlier we spoke to our correspondent, linsey smith, who gave us this update from the scene. we know some of those people remain in hospital this lunchtime and an investigation is taking place to find out how this happened. the clean—up operation

will take some time, there is a car park about 150 metres away and that and all the vehicles in it are completely peppered with bricks, debris travelled that far. opposite was a chinese restaurant which was very busy on a saturday evening, the blast blew the windows through and debris went through the windows. stories emerging, some people thought a bomb had gone off unto calver, others dragging their friends and family out of debris. what remains is that we do not know which building the explosion happened then, the sentiment is that people are surprised and grateful there were not more people seriously injured. a prominent critic of russian president vladimir putin has been detained at an anti corruption rally in moscow. these are the latest pictures.

several people have been detained including the main organiser. steve rosenberg is on the line. how big are the protests? i am standing on the edge of the square and several thousand people... the police pushed protesters off the square and now they're trying to get people to move away from the area. it was a large protest a nd away from the area. it was a large protest and keep in mind the people who came out to protest against alleged government corruption new this protest had not been permitted by the moscow authorities so new that could be consequences. there was quite a large turnout. they

organised this protest and protests in100 organised this protest and protests in 100 other towns in russia, the leader was detained and we are being moved by the police away from the square and the protest looks to be coming to an end. the leader will have not been surprised to have been arrested. presumably the authorities will have to handle this delicately given the likely response if he is not treated respectfully? absolutely. it is no surprise that he was detained. it is a dilemma because if they clamp down hard on alexei navalny it could see support across the country. there was a good turnout today for the protests

across russia. but if they decide not to press charges against him, then we could see protests in the coming weeks. it is a dilemma for the authorities to stop looking ahead at the russian economy, if a further economic problems here, social problems, that encourage more people to attend future protests. why are they targeting the protesters and demanding the resignation? it is noisy where you are. why are they keen to see dmitry medvedev resign? we were talking to the protesters earlier, and people believe the government is corrupt. that dmitry medvedev is corrupt. there was a recent investigation, anti—corruption there was a recent investigation, anti—corru ption investigation carried out by alexei navalny

concluded dmitry medvedev was corrupt, that was the conclusion. and we had people on the square criticising vladimir putin saying it was time for a change. these views do not represent the views of eve ryo ne do not represent the views of everyone in russia. but certainly the fact we saw so many people turning out at an unsanctioned meeting in moscow today suggests... technical problems with sound steve, we have lost you. we will try to talk to you later. thank you. steve coping with the protest and the police moved him on. the labour leaderjeremy corbyn says labour will oppose plans to give ministers the powers to change some aspects of european laws, without needing the approving of parliament. speaking ahead of this thursday's publication of a white paper on the great repeal bill, he insisted that parliament could not be bypassed. we need total accountability at every stage of this whole brexit negotiation. i understand there is going to be about 12 ancillary related bills.

we're not going to sit there and hand over power to this government to override parliament, override democracy and just set down a series of diktats for what is going to happen in the future. we'd be failing in our duty as democratically—elected parliamentarians if we did that. with me now is our political correspondent mark lobel — mark, tell us more about this great repeal bill and what the government's plans are? they will announce the white paper, the proposals for the great repeal bill, the process to repeal the 1972 act that brought eu law into this country. the way they want to do thatis country. the way they want to do that is to transition the law into british law but they do not want any legal black hole is to be left so government wants to give ministers special powers so they can tidy up a lot of the stuff they say will not be necessary like if you are advertising a public service contract you have to put it into an eu publication or they maybe mention

of eu legislations butjeremy corbyn says he is opposed to any special powers and anything taking power away from parliament as we heard him properly scrutinising the bill and a response from the leader of the house of commons and let us hear what he said. i am told we do not have it, you may have to fill us in! he said the special powers will have to be voted on in parliament. the timing, definition and the rest of it. by coming into force, they will come through parliament so he says the sovereignty lies with them. the actual bill itself would not be voted on until the spring so plenty of time for the two parties to thrash out their position. this will bea thrash out their position. this will be a complicated process because in 40 be a complicated process because in a0 yea rs be a complicated process because in a0 years so much of the legislation has been introduced since 1972 has incorporated elements of european laws and somehow we have to take out

the bits we don't want and keep the bits we do. it sounds like a needle ina bits we do. it sounds like a needle in a haystack. you have so much to do in two years if the government sticks with its timetable to avoid the black holes. what the government wa nts to the black holes. what the government wants to do is kick the can down the road and bring everything in and it says it is an efficient way giving ministers powers but labour is nervous behind—the—scenes about what the government might do with these powers and if changes that change the meaning of laws, notjust the tidying up exercise. brilliant, i nearly court two henry! henry viii and his powers. —— called you henry. the headlines... the home secretary says the government is prepared to ta ke says the government is prepared to take action at internet companies that do not assist intelligence services and combat terrorism. more than 30 people were injured and two

seriously after a suspected gas explosion in merseyside. alexei navalny is arrested in russia along with dozens of others at an anti—corruption with dozens of others at an anti—corru ption protest in with dozens of others at an anti—corruption protest in russia. the former ukip leader nigel farage has said that mp douglas carswell — who resigned from the party yesterday — has a duty to trigger a by—election in his clacton consituency. mr carswell isn't going back to the conservatives — instead he'll sit as an independent. a short while ago, mr farage told me that he'd caused "endless division" in the party. oh, it is, absolutely. this guy has been working against the party consistently for the last two years. he never supported, from day one, many of the key planks the party believes in, he was sincere on brexit but nothing else, he caused endless division, and i am very pleased he is gone, particularly pleased for paul nuttall, who has now got a chance to lead a unified party. with douglas carswell there, that was always going to be impossible.

but douglas carswell was elected on a ukip ticket, something which, respectfully, you didn't manage to do, neither did the present leader of the party. just remember this — clacton is demographically the number—one eurosceptic seat in this country, and i would say this, a lot of people who voted him into parliament did not vote just because of him, they voted ukip, he has given up the label on which he was elected, and this is the man who led the charge in parliament for real recall, to give people a mechanism by which if 20% of the constituency, if they voted to have a by—election, they should legally be able to have one. so what we will do is take him at his word, and we will now write to every house in clacton and ask them, "do you want "a by—election or not?" if more than 20% say they do, we will find outjust how honourable mr ca rswell is. but technically he doesn't have to have a by—election, he maintains because he is not moving party, he doesn't

need to have one. of course he does, he was voted in as a ukip candidate, and it is a constituency in which ukip is very, very strong. i could be wrong, but i suspect there will be a lot of very angry ukip voters in clacton this morning. what you make of this central point that ukip has achieved what it set out to achieve? brexit is going to happen, it is happening this week, that is why he is going, job done very successfully. we have won the war, we now have to win the peace, and i am very concerned, i see the government backtracking on taking back territorial fishing waters, i hearfrom amber rudd that she wants us to stay part of the european arrest warrant, she wants european court ofjustice in luxembourg still to have supremacy in some areas. this is farfrom over. do you fear that, once again, ukip is in the headlines because of internal infighting, rather than because of what you stand for?

virtually every bad story about ukip that has emerged for the last two and a half years has come as a result of splits with douglas carswell, a tiny handful of people that were his key supporters, and i think, actually, in terms of splits, i think today is a very good unifying day for the party, i am hearing that already. so a prediction from nigel farage that it will be harmony from now on within ukip? well, i don't think there will be big ideological divides, everyone in the senior positions agrees with the manifesto, understands how important immigration is as an issue to britain voters, and for two and a half years we had douglas carswell trying to get rid of that policy — has ended. returning to the fight against online extremism. amber rudd called for a clamp—down. the director of europol, rob wainwright was asked whether the home secretary was right to say the intelligence

services must have access to encrypted messages. and monitoring the way the internet is being used to spread this ugly propaganda. 80 cases across europe, thatis propaganda. 80 cases across europe, that is a lot of cases. what other difficulties facing police forces as they struggle to deal with the threat? the scale is a challenge, we have thousands of radicalised individuals working across a dispersed network, some of which like we saw at the berlin christmas

market, the attack in nice in france, these people were on the fringes of the radicalised community, not much intelligence to indicate that they were about to carry out an attack like this and that makes therefore the job of the security services and police exceptionally difficult to get right. having said that, we are seeing almost all of the attempted attacks in europe are stopped, this was the 1ath attempt in the last three orfour was the 1ath attempt in the last three or four years was the 1ath attempt in the last three orfour years in was the 1ath attempt in the last three or four years in the was the 1ath attempt in the last three orfour years in the uk and the only one to get through. it is highly challenging. you referred to social media and you are aware that the british home secretary has called on technology firms like whatsapp to help the security services, to allow them access to encrypted material in terror related cases, what is your reaction? well,

it isa cases, what is your reaction? well, it is a reasonable call by the home secretary. what we are seeing across the cases europol has been supporting is encryption is more and more of a feature of those cases, more of a feature of those cases, more and more of the means by which terrorists are attempting to communicate in a secure way and a significant challenge for the police to get beyond that and at the heart of it is this stark and dashing consistency that the police have the means to carry out lawful interception of telephone calls but not a interception of telephone calls but nota similar interception of telephone calls but not a similar means to intercept communications if they appear through social media. and that does not seem right. there is an inconsistency that has not yet been fixed by the right legislation or the right kind of interaction between government and technology partners. that was the boss of europol talking to us earlier. an investigation has been opened after the pentagon confirmed that american—led coalition fighter jets struck in the area near a site in the iraqi city of mosul — where many civilians are reported killed.

us central command says iraqi military requested the attack against islamic state fighters. earlier, we spoke to our correspondent yalda hakim who's in the nearby city of irbil who gave us this update on the us air strikes in the region. for over a week we have been hearing reports that us—led air strikes have left at least 150 people dead in west mosul. they did issue a statement yesterday, saying they had launched an investigation, that they respect human life, but that they wouldn't abandon this operation. this is perhaps the most difficult part or phase of this whole operation for iraqi forces. the front line has now reached the old city, it is densely populated, the streets and alleyways are incredibly narrow, so they will not be able to use tanks, and there will be a lot of street—to—street fighting, as well as house—to—house fighting. they will also be relying on air strikes, and so it is difficult, in the fog of war, in the murkiness of all this, for us as the bbc to be able to verify a lot of these reports. our middle east editor,

jeremy bowen, is in west mosul, and he has spoken to civilians who say that there are ongoing air strikes in the area, that they are very angry about it, but that is militants are also using them as human shields, positioning snipers within their homes, as well as on their rooftops. and, yalda, while attempts are being made to establish what happened and who was responsible, there is a potential humanitarian crisis. indeed, reeta, yesterday we were at a camp, seeing thousands of people arriving on buses that had been provided by the iraqi army, bringing them out of the war zone. it is very difficult for the civilians — if they stay in west mosul, they risk being killed through air strikes, or from hunger. a lot of them have no water, no food, no access to electricity or sanitation. if they try to leave,

is snipers may kill them, or they might get caught in the crossfire. when they are brought out, and there are thousands, 5—8000 arriving every day at these various camps, there are about 30 or more camps that have been built around northern iraq to keep these people, and the situation there is incredibly desperate for these people. up to a few days ago, the weather was quite grim, it was cold and wet, we were being told that people within the area were burning furniture and clothing to keep warm, and when they arrive in the camp, it is a desperate attempt to get as much food and water for the civilians who are just arriving. yalda hakim there. hong kong's new chief executive has been chosen. carrie lam, seen in the middle here, is believed to be beijing's preferred candidate. she won in the first round of voting by a specially chosen committee. pro—democracy activists had denounced the poll as a sham,

arguing that everyone should have a vote. staying in hong kong, at least 18 people have been injured, one seriously, after an apparent escalator malfunction in a shopping centre. the escalator was packed with shoppers when it apparently went in to reverse at high speed and dozens of people were thrown to the bottom. one man received a serious head injury. a spokesperson for the langham place centre said the escalator had passed a recent safety inspection. the taxi firm uber has suspended its pilot programme for driverless cars after an early model of its self—driving car crashed on a roadway in arizona. the accident is the latest in a series of crashes involving autonomous vehicles. it's not yet known whether the car was in self driving mode at the time of the crash. uber said it caused no serious injuries. the first race of the new formula one season, the australian grand prix, has been won by ferrari's sebastian vettel. his team's first victory since 2015. lewis hamilton finished ten seconds behind, with his mercedes team—mate

valteri bottas in third. not as nice in there as it has looked in the last few hours in the uk, let us take a look at the weather prospects. yeah, we can match australia! it is beautiful, not as warm as melbourne but we cannot complain for the time of year. barely a cloud in the sky, blue skies prevail this afternoon, out of the breeze it will turn quite chilly quite quickly overnight. low cloud creeping in from the north sea central and eastern parts might end ona central and eastern parts might end on a murky note. touches of frost in rural north—western areas. tomorrow morning, it may dawn differently, low cloud and missed, central and eastern parts and up towards yorkshire, the scottish border

knocking temperatures on the head but the most diverse another fine day, pleasantly warm, temperatures in the high teens. the wind not as blustery in the south. after a dry start of the week ahead, it turns more settled. some rain pushing in, and warm sunshine. hello. this is bbc news. the headlines at 2:30pm: the home secretary has called on social media providers to end the encryption of messaging services. her comments come after it was revealed khalid masood used whatsapp messaging just before launching his attack in westminster last week. scotland yard has confirmed the attack carried out by masood took just 82 seconds. detectives have revealed his motive may never be known. they believe he acted alone, despite one of the 11 people arrested in connection with the attack remaining in custody. the family of pc keith palmer who was killed in the attack have paid tribute to him and thanked those who helped him after he was stabbed. they said they wanted to ‘express their gratitude'

to the people who were with him in his last moments. more than 30 people have been injured, two seriously, after a suspected gas explosion in merseyside. several buildings collapsed and others were damaged in the incident and homes nearby have been evacuated, it could be several days before owners can return. the pentagon has admitted us—led coalition aircraft did strike an area in the iraqi city of mosul where dozens of civilians are said to have been killed. the un says there's growing concern about the fate of civilians in the city. breaking news from berlin, reports that a car has ploughed into a group of cyclists on the outskirts of the city. several are reported severely injured, they were taking part in a race injured, they were taking part in a ra ce eve nt injured, they were taking part in a race event at the time, people are trying to determine whether the vehicle was driven into the group deliberately. that is the latest from that story in berlin, a

possible accident or deliberate act, it is not clear wake—up has ploughed into a it is not clear wake—up has ploughed intoa group it is not clear wake—up has ploughed into a group of cyclists taking part ina race into a group of cyclists taking part in a race event. —— where a car has ploughed into a group of cyclists. now on bbc news, it's time for week in parliament. hello and welcome to the week in parliament — a week that brought bloodshed to the streets of westminster and a defiant response from mps. let this be the message from this house and this nation today — our values will prevail.