this is bbc news. i'm vicky young. the headlines at 11:00pm: prince harry and actress meghan markle have announced their engagement. in an interview with the bbc, the couple spoke of how they knew from early on that they were meant for each other. all the stars were aligned, everything was just perfect. this beautiful woman fell in to my life, ifell into her life and i know the fact she'll be really good at the job part of it as well. very early on when we realised we were going to commit to each other, we knew we would have to invest the time and the energy and whatever it took to make that happen. the ring designed by the prince contains diamonds that belonged to his mother. the royal family have expressed their best wishes. members of the public have also shared their thoughts. 0h, oh, i 0h, ithink oh, i think it is fantastic. 0h, ithink it is fantastic. 0h,

lovely. marvellous, yes. it is a sign of how modern the family is. it is fantastic. he is a happy chap, thatis is fantastic. he is a happy chap, that is the main thing and it shows i suppose the royal family are modernising, for want of a better word. in other news, brexit secretary david davis faces criticism for redacting the government's analysis of the potential impact of brexit on the economy, before the papers were handed over to a committee of mps. and a special report on the plight of young rohingya girls forced into the sex industry as refugees in bangladesh. and on newsnight tonight, fears of a snap general election in ireland, which could have huge consequences for the border and four brexit — we're life in dublin —— live in dublin and we will speak with the dup. good evening and

welcome to bbc news. prince harry and the american actress meghan markle have announced their engagement, and they'll be married in the spring. as fifth in line to the throne, prince harry had to obtain her majesty's permission, and buckingham palace said today that the queen and the duke of edinburgh were delighted with the news. our first report tonight on the royal engagement from our royal correspondent nicholas witchell. finally, it's official. they are engaged to be married. prince harry, fifth in line to the british throne, and meghan markle, an american, an actress, a divorcee and, as she has put it herself, a woman who is proud of her mixed—race heritage. seldom can a royal wedding have indicated so clearly how times have changed. reporter: how are you both feeling? yeah, thrilled! i'm very glad it's not raining as well. harry was asked when he realised meghan was the one.

the very first time we met. reporter: meghan, can you show us the ring, please? yes. ah, yes, the ring. designed, it turns out, by harry, and including two diamonds owned by his late mother. harry and meghan — he 33, she 36. a happy couple who met 18 months ago, and are now starting to plan a wedding, which will take place next spring. later, in their engagement interview with the bbc, the couple talked about the moment earlier this month when harry proposed. just an amazing surprise. it was so sweet and natural and very romantic. he got on one knee! of course. was it an instant yes from you? yes! as a matter of fact, i could barely let you finish proposing. i said, "can i say yes now?" she didn't even let me finish. then there was hugs, and i had the ring in my finger. i was like, "can i give you the ring?" she said, "oh yes, the ring!"

so it was a really nice moment, it was just the two of us. i think i managed to catch her by surprise as well. yeah. and harry spoke of the instant impact meghan had had on him. the fact that i fell in love with meghan so incredibly quickly was a sort of confirmation to me that everything, all the stars were aligned, everything was just perfect. it was this beautiful woman just sort of literally tripped and fell into my life, and i fell into her life. and the fact that she — i know the fact that she will be unbelievably good at the job part of it as well, is obviously a huge relief to me, because she'll be able to do with everything else that with it. within the royal family there is, as you'd expect, great happiness at the news. the queen was delighted. as was harry's father, the prince of wales. we are thrilled, thank you very much. for both of them. i hope they'll be very happy indeed. that's all i can say. the duke and duchess of cambridge tweeted their excitement for the couple, saying it had been wonderful getting to know meghan and to see how happy

the couple were together. so now, next spring, there will be a double royal celebration. another baby for william and catherine, and a wedding in a so—far unidentified church for harry and his bride, meghan markle. nicholas witchell, bbc news. prince harry and meghan markle began dating last summer, and, just a year and a half on, news of their coming wedding has raced around the world. they've spoken to the bbc‘s mishal hussein about their relationship, their feelings for one another, and prince harry's proposal. how did you first meet? we were introduced by a mutualfriend. we should protect her privacy and not share too much of that. it was literally through her, and then we met once and then twice back to back, two dates in london lastjuly.

yes. beginning ofjuly. and then it was three or four weeks later that i managed to persuade her to come and join me in botswana, and we camped out with each other under the stars and we spent five days out there, which was fantastic. then we were really by ourselves, which was crucial to me to make sure we had a chance to get to know each other. the friend who introduced you, was she trying to set you up? it was definitely a setup! it was a blind date, we talk about it now, because i'm from the states, we don't grow up with the same understanding of the royal family and so while i understand now very clearly there is a global interest there, i didn't know much about him, and so the only thing i asked her when she said she wanted to set us up, one question, i said, was he nice? because if he wasn't kind, it didn't seem to make sense. in the case of your relationship,

unlike for most people, there's a layer of what it means to get involved with someone the royal family. how much of a sense did you have of the enormity of what you were getting into and what it would mean for your life? as naive as it sounds now, having gone through this learning curve over the last year and a half, i didn't have any understanding of what it would be like. i don't think either of us did, we both said that. no, i tried to warn you as much as possible but i think both of us were totally surprised by the reaction after the first five or six months we had to ourselves of what happened from then. i think you can have as many conversations as you want and prepare as much as possible but we were totally unprepared for what happened. the scrutiny? well, all sorts. well, i think also, there's a misconception that because i've worked in the entertainment industry that this would be something i'd be

familiar with but even though i've been on my show for six years at that point, and working before that, i've never been part of tabloid culture, pop culture to that degree and had lived a relatively quiet life even though i focused so much on myjob. so that was a really stark difference out of the gate. and we were just hit so hard with a lot of mistruths that i made the choice not to read anything, positive or negative, itjust didn't make sense, and instead we focus our energies on nurturing our relationship. on us. some of that scrutiny, and you ended up making a public statement about it, some of the scrutiny was centred around your ethnicity, i think. when you realised that, what did you think? of course, it's disheartening. it's a shame that that is the climate in this world, to focus that much on that, that that would be discriminatory in that sense

but at the end of the day i'm reallyjust proud of who i am and where i come from. we have never put any focus on that, we've just focused on who we are as a couple. when you take those extra layers away, all of that noise, i think it makes it really easy to just enjoy being together and tune the rest of it out. what was it like introducing meghan to your father and your brother? erm... what was it like? it was exciting. i've been seeing herfor a period of time i didn't tell anybody at all. and then william was longing to meet her and so was catherine. they are neighbours, we got that in a couple of times now, and catherine has been absolutely amazing, as has william, as well, you know, fantastic support. my father as well, we had a handful of teas and meetings and all sorts

of gatherings over at his place as well. the family together have been absolutely solid support. and you met the queen? for me, so when i met her i had a deep understanding and of course incredible respect for having that time with her. we've had a really... she's an incredible woman. the last 33 years of being barked at, this one, walking in, the corgis. your ring. tell us about the ring. it is yellow gold,

because it is her favourite, and the main stone is from botswana, and the diamonds either side are from my mother's jewellery collection. to make sure that she's with us on this crazy journey together. it's beautiful and he designed it. it's incredible. yeah. make sure it stays on that finger. of course! what does it mean to you, meghan, to have those stones on your finger that once belonged to princess diana? i think everything about harry's thoughtfulness and the inclusion of that and obviously not being able to meet his mum, 2-354 5.9}! 9.55}?! leg-j 7 . — 7 —

they'd hoped for. they are extremely vulnerable, many have no possessions, and some are becoming victims of sexual exploitation. this report by my colleague reeta chakrabarti who is in bangladesh. this is cox's bazar. famous for being the world's longest sandy beach, and the town that is nearest the refugee camps. it looks idyllic. but as day turns to night, a seedier side emerges. a huge and desperate new population

nearby provides fresh opportunities for exploitation. and we've spoken to some young female refugees who are in real danger. rohingya girls alone and in their teens are being traded by their own people and local bangladeshis. they're sold for sex. and in the case of one 17—year—old girl, kept in a hotel by rohingya men and treated like a slave. i asked her if she gets paid for any of the work she does. nothing? incredible, isn't it?

she is just a slave. another girl who was just 15 told us she escaped by boat from myanmar after her mother was shot dead by the military. she used her only possessions to pay the boatman, who then attacked her. once she got to bangladesh, a local woman who she thought would help her, took her home. she had nowhere else to go. and now the woman forces her to sleep with several men a night. do the men pay you when they have sex with you? these two girls are now being helped by a local group, but there are many more in this town suffering the same fate.

they all came to escape the violence at home. and now find themselves in a different kind of hell. now on bbc news, it's time for newsnight. tonight, could this be the border that sinks brexit?