this is bbc news. i'm clive myrie. the headlines at 11:00: companies across the world have been hit by a ransomware attack, including a british advertising agency and a pharmaceutical firm. scotland's first minister, nicola sturgeon, says she's delaying plans for a second independence referendum. it's emerged that london firefighters warned councils about the risks of using panels to cover tower blocks, just weeks before the grenfell fire. google has been fined more than 2billion pounds by the european commission, for illegally favouring its own shopping services. and coming up on newsnight, we'll hear from the leader of the snp in westminster. did his party overreach itself with talk of another independence referendum, having enjoyed momentum over the years is it now in retreat? good evening and

welcome to bbc news. a large—scale cyber attack that started in ukraine is continuing to spread across the world tonight. the virus freezes computers and demands that a ransom is paid. a danish shipping firm, a russian oil giant, an american pharmaceutical company and a british advertising agency are among the companies that have been hit. the cyber attack seems to be similar to the one that struck the nhs last month. our security correspondent, gordon corera, has been monitoring. a cyber attack is sweeping across the globe taking systems off—line. another reminder of the risks we face. the first signs came in ukraine. systems went down this morning. some people tried to take money out of bank machines, found they couldn't.

even the radiation monitoring system at the chernobyl nuclear plant was briefly taken offline. the scale was enormous. we had the virus spread, cyber virus on the transport, bank, media, infrastructure of ukraine, in government and in the co—operative sectors as well. but during the day, it became clear that the problem was not contained in ukraine but was spreading. reports came in of companies affected from russia across europe to the uk and also the us. those affected included oil producers, shipping and pharmaceutical companies and a london—based advertising group. they were all faced with a screen like this, telling them they've been locked out of their computer and needed to pay a ransom to get back in. computer systems which have not been upgraded or patched are usually the most vulnerable. today's ransomware has some similarities but is not the same

as that which struck the nhs last month and so far, there's no sign of health services being affected. experts say the new attack in some ways is more sophisticated, but the aim is still to make money. ransomware is very effective. attackers can sit at home, in the comfort of their living rooms, somewhere possibly on the other side of the world, and mount these attacks with very low risk to themselves and very high upside. in many cases they'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars out of an attack like this. so far the signs are that the uk has not been badly hit but officials will be watching to see how far it spreads and how much damage this attack is really does. scotland's first minister, nicola sturgeon has scrapped plans for a second referendum on independence by the spring of 2019. she said she had reconsidered after the snp lost around a third of its seats at westminster in the general election. she now says any decision on another

vote will be delayed until after the uk has left the european union. here's our scotland editor sarah smith. nicola sturgeon may not look like a woman thwarted, but she cannot now march ahead with her plans for an independence referendum — admitting today, voters have rejected that idea and she has had to think again. having listened and reflected, the scottish government will reset the plan i set out on march 13th. we will not seek to introduce the legislation for an independence referendum immediately. instead, we will, in good faith, redouble our efforts and put our shoulder to the wheel in seeking to influence the brexit talks in a way that protects scotland's interests. we will seek to build... she wants to keep open the option of a referendum after the brexit deal is clear. the tories want her to abandon her plans completely. i'm afraid to say that that statement will fail to give

any assurance to those people that this first minister is listening to them. instead, she appears to be in denial about her mistakes over this last year and, as a result, is leaking credibility and confidence in her leadership by the hour. nicola sturgeon‘s message today is that she is listening to voters and she understands they don't want another independence referendum any time soon. but she's not taking it completely off the table. she says she will continue to argue the case for why scotland should be an independent country. nicola sturgeon rose like a rock star after the referendum defeat in 2014. her personal popularity fuelled electoral success and put independence back on the agenda. but it seems she went too far, too fast. now she admits she will have to make a fresh case for independence before there can be another vote, and she will have to pick her timing carefully. it's the only thing that makes common sense. i think another referendum would be

disaster for scotland. i'm an snp supporter, but i think that it would make no sense, given the current political climate, it makes no sense for the snp to move forward with a vote on itjust now. i think we should have a vote on it. she should put it out to the public and let them have their vote on it. i think it should. the scottish greens back the snp's call for an early referendum and do not want to see the timetable slip. if we wait until autumn next year or even later, then we will be well out of the european union before the people of scotland have the chance to say whether they consent to that. scotland has not consented to leave the european union or to have our rights and protections as european citizens torn up without our consent. holyrood today heard nicola sturgeon say she was responding to voters who don't want an independence vote, but also that she has not given up the fight. her opponents say she isn't listening.

her party hope this is no more than a rain check, just a temporary delay. sarah smith, bbc news, edinburgh. yet more tower blocks around the country have failed fire safety tests. the total now is 95, in more than 30 councils in england. the government has appointed a panel of experts to give advice on the immediate changes that can be made, to avoid another grenfell tower disaster. here's our home editor, mark easton. the grenfell tower fire is turning from sickening tragedy into national scandal. the blaze appears to be exposing hidden risks and confusion over fire safety that stretches across the country. every sample of cladding from 95 tower blocks, across 32 english local authorities, has now failed government tests — although the communities department, who ordered the testing, has named only 20 councils. the prime minister has said there needs to be a major national investigation. something has clearly gone wrong over a number of years and we need to find out what, why,

and how to make sure it does not happen again. but there are questions about the testing process. cladding from this block in norwich failed the government test last week. but the housing association which owns it said the cutting past the fire test when it was installed. the certificate describes it as low risk class zero, but the government now says they are class three — so dangerous they must removed immediately. how come the test on friday moved it from class zero to a class three? we can only guess or presume what they did in the test, because we haven't been told yet. all we've had is a telephone call on friday evening saying the product has failed the test, and what are we going to do about it? it has been confirmed to the bbc that the tests on cladding being conducted for the government are not the same as the checks for a product's fire certification. the focus is not in the entire panel but specifically in the two millimetre core

within the aluminium casing. and as this crisis grows, a new group of building and fire safety experts has been assembled to advise ministers in immediate steps. peter bonfield is one of those experts, who also heads the building research establishment conducting the cladding tests. the cladding panel is only one part of fire safety in a building. we have to think about that. and having this advisory panel is something we can get together and make sure we concentrate our minds expediently, robustly and thoroughly, thinking through how we address the challenges the country faces at the moment. the bbc has learned that in the month before the grenfell tower tragedy, the fire service warned every london council they had done testing on external cladding and found the core in some was so combustible it could spread a fire up the side of the building. the letter is eerily prescient, warning that panels can deform

or delaminate in a tower block fire, exposing their combustible core and allowing a blaze to spread from flat to flat. this is one more in a pattern of warnings about the fire safety in tower blocks. and i think it shows the whole system of building control and checks is failing and now needs urgent overhaul. from the charred skeleton of grenfell tower, a toxic cloud of uncertainty and anxiety has drifted across the country. and tonight, two weeks after the fire began, a reminder of one of those who lost their lives. a little boy who got separated from his family as they tried to get out — 5—year—old isaac paulos. "we will all miss our kind, energetic, generous little boy," his family said. "we will miss him forever." mark easton, bbc news. judges at the european court

of human rights have rejected a plea from the parents of the terminally—ill baby charlie gard, to intervene in his case. chris gard and connie yates lost their final legal appeal, to take their son to america for experimental treatment. the court said the prospects of success would "continue to cause charlie significant harm". the european commission has fined google, more than £2 billion the european commission has fined google more than £2 billion for breaking competition laws. it says the company has abused its dominance as a search engine, by giving priority to its own shopping comparison service. google says it's considering an appeal. 0ur media editor amol rajan reports. they're the new masters of the universe. google's products have changed our lives forever but, today, the company was brought down to earth in the brussels headquarters of the european commission. after a seven—year investigation into google's business practices, commissioner margrethe vestager delivered a brutal verdict. google has abused its market

dominance as a search engine by giving illegal advantages to another google product, its shopping comparison service. if you search google for something that you want to buy — say, for instance, my new cricket bat — several ads appear here at the top of the screen. these are clearly marked ‘sponsored' and are part of a service called google shopping. each time i click on one of the ads, the american tech giant earns some money. but today, the european commission ruled that this prime real estate gives google an unfair advantage. kelkoo is one of the companies that brought the case. it says google needs to be reined in. it said, right, i'm going to take over this marketplace and i'm going to demote you all and put myself at the top of the listings. anti—competitive. they can't do that when they have a 90% share in general search. they use that power, and that's wrong. google said it respectfully disagreed with the decision and would take the 90 days

granted by the commission to find a solution. 0ne former google insider says the company is being punished for its success. the reality is, google is all about creating a great user experience. the reason why people come back and we use it probably on a daily basis is because it enables us to find what we are looking for as quickly as possible, it's a frictionless experience. and they need to stay competitive. for years now, european officials have been itching to subject tech giants to fresh regulations. but over in silicon valley, many leading innovators believe social problems usually have a technological, rather than legal solution. one of the great mantras of silicon valley is, move fast and break things. i don't think that many people would characterise eu bureaucracy as having that kind of spirit. there are two very different worldviews — america and europe. and they have very different attitudes on competition, on access to data, even on very fundamental things like the profit motive. whether it's a good thing or not.

what i think is fascinating about this case is it really shows a very different attitude. through remarkable innovation and engineering, google has become integral to our daily routines. this record fine is a reminder that it is at base an advertising company, which uses our personal data to sell us things. if you don't like the search results, well, there's always yahoo!. amol rajan, bbc news. now on bbc news it's time for newsnight with evan davies. it seemed unstoppable once but the brakes are being applied. the scottish government will reset the plan. we will not seek an independence referendum immediately. the snp has put a stop for now, to its plan for a second referendum. having enjoyed momentum in their favour for years, they've had to make a tactical retreat, with the polls showing the scottish people unconvinced

of the case for independence. we will ask the snp leader in westminster what went wrong and what has changed. also tonight, cambridge analytica — compare and contrast these two statements. we are going to be running large—scale research that the nation really understand, why people are interested in staying in or out of the eu. we've had absolutely no involvement in the leave campaign, we didn't do any paid or unpaid work. some believe the firm's psychological techniques were the secret weapon that swung the eu referendum, but it's not that clear. and we hear from the man who four years ago was in charge of our armed forces. there is a lot of debate and discord over brexit. that alone, let alone the other things we have been talking about, means this country is in