tv Our World BBC News March 3, 2018 9:30pm-10:01pm GMT
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this is bbc world news. the headlines. world football's world rule—making body has approved the use of var, letting officials use tv pictures if foul play or a mistaken decision. it is set to be used in the world cup in russia. donald trump has stepped up his war of words over trade tariffs. he has threatened to slap a tax on car imports from the eu. his call for ta riffs imports from the eu. his call for tariffs on foreign steel has been criticised by world leaders. a senior un human rights official says she will not be intimidated by the philippine government in her attem pts philippine government in her atte m pts to philippine government in her attempts to investigate thousands of killings in the president's or on drawers. she has been denied an official visit. the funeral has taken place in slovakia ephemeral investigative journalist yonkers yak. hundreds of mourners attended the ceremony one day after the burial of his fiancee, who was shot dead at the same time. at ten
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o'clock, reeta chakrabarti will be here with a round—up of the news. but first, it is our world... in a moscow nightclub, the opposition candidate makes her pitch to the capital's cultural elite. russian democracy is a strange and sometimes dangerous beast. it's a fake election. it is a fake election? yes, i am always telling that. explain what you mean. i mean like in a casino, when the win is always on the house. in russia it is always on putin's side. so i'm not trying to win, i have no illusions about that. i am taking part to be heard. once upon a time, in the former capital of the czars,
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a girl was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. when the communist empire collapsed, it produced an alchemy that turned silver into gold for some. her father, one of theiounders he would later die in uncertain circumstances, while his former deputy, a once unknown kgb officer, would become the most powerful man in russia. he was the person who gave who gave putin his firstjob. i was a little girl back then. but by a strange twist of fate, nearly two decades later, the girl with the silver spoon would challenge the new czar for the highest office in the land.
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350 miles south of moscow, the city of kursk. ksenia sobchak is on the campaign trail. her task here is to show she can talk to ordinary russians, too. the biggest problem in russia is not freedom of speech. unfortunately, for many people, it is the poverty. out in the suburbs, residents have been complaining they can't get their children into a local nursery. sobchak herself is the mother of a young child, and she's hoping
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that will help her connect with these voters. well, now she is haranguing some local officials. this is pretty much the kind of thing putin does when he goes around the region. how do you feel like people react to you, coming, as you do, from quite a privileged background? you know, i don't try to be like, i am like one of you, because, well, it's not true. if i wear red lipstick in my everyday time, why should i go without makeup to them. so i am not a populist.
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i come in a good car and in good clothes, but i own this money, i did not steal it. corruption is a big issue in this election for all candidates. after a slightly optimistic welcome at local campaign headquarters, sobchak take things one step further. in russian politics, there are certain red lines. among them, putin and his inner circle. are you saying putin is corrupt? i'm saying putin created a system for those money to get money from the state.
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direct criticism of vladimir putin seems dangerous, and many people do not want to know. but sobchak‘s journey to dissidence has been an unusual one. when money gets into my hand, i spend everything on clothes. it's where my budget stays. it's about $3000—$4000 month. in the first decade of this century, as many russians struggled, ksenia sobchak transformed herself from society rich kid to tv celebrity, feeding the masses a diet of reality television and branding herself simply ‘ksenia'. but then the girl with the silver spoon had another transformation.
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in 2011, shejoined opposition protests and was promptly carted off to a police cell. alexei navalny, the movement's leader, has long been a thorn in the kremlin's side. i was close with him for all those years. we shared many values and we still share many of those values, i hope. but when navalny was banned from standing in this year's elections, and ksenia announced that she was running instead, his supporters called her a traitor. they said that she was a kremlin agent, just more reality tv. could that be true? could it be that ksenia sobchak
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is doing the kremlin's bidding? i paid a visit to her campaign headquarters to meet one of her top advisers, a woman well versed in the darker arts of russian politics. she should be — she used to work for vladimir putin himself. just to be clear, this is ksenia sobchak‘s own campaign advisers saying yes, we are playing the kremlin's game — but in russia, there is always more than one game going on. and that's exactly what sobchak
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says she's trying to do. if there is one thing that ksenia sobchak understands, it's the power of television. she is using her candidacy to talk about issues that are taboo. to say this on state tv is heresy — genuinely subversive. shocked presenters have resorted to surreal measures to try and drown her out. but here's the conundrum:the kremlin controls everything — who gets to stand in elections, and who gets to go on television. so what is going on? ksenia treads a delicate path.
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before she set out on herjourney, the girl with the silver spoon needed to get the approval of the czar in the kremlin. she needed wise counsel. alexei venediktov is one of russia's most famous and well—connected journalists. as it happens, ksenia is in the process of making a film about her father, the former mayor of st petersburg. putin, his former deputy,
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agreed to an interview. so, in september, she went to see him in the kremlin. and then in the end, and said that, you know, that this decision, i just want you to know that i am going to challenge you. and he was like, silent for a second, then said, well, that is your decision — but it is your responsibility. what you think he meant by that? i don't even want to think about that. i don't think anything nice. and so the czar decided to accept his challenger. but not everybody was happy. behind the facade of monolithic power, different factions struggled for control. how indeed? how had the girl who spoke out against the czar get permission to run against him? the answer to this riddle lies buried in the past, when vladimir putin worked for ksenia sobchak‘s father in st petersburg.
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perhaps it should more accurately be titled the museum of how russian democracy was poisoned at source. the name anatoly sobchak stands alongside the likes of gorbachev and yeltsin. the story of how the anti—soviet reformer chose an obscure kgb officer as his deputy is also the story of how factions from the old soviet security establishment have come to be running russia today. anatoly sobchak was voted
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out of office in 1996 amid allegations of corruption. while his political fortunes declined, his deputy‘s were on the rise. putin moved to moscow and got a job in the kremlin. when anti—corru ption investigators called sobchak in for questioning, putin personally helped spirit him out of the country. with sobchak gone, the investigation ground to a halt. a few years later an independent journalist in saint petersburg had an unexpected visitor. a man by the name of yury shutov claimed to have the details of the sobchak investigation. he had a dossier, i didn't
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take it into my rooms, i didn't open it. why would a journalist not want to read the dossier? the answer is self—preservation. not long after this, shutov was charged with murder. when a judge dismissed the case due to lack of evidence, armed officers burst into the courtroom and rearrested him. he ended his days in a remote prison colony. he knew too much. he used to work for sobchak. and because... he was dangerous, when he was free. but sobchak was already out of the picture. why was he still dangerous? he was dangerous to someone around sobchak, someone who was very close to sobchak.
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i suspect that he was dangerous to putin as well. in the course of making a film about her father, ksenia sobchak got hold of classified investigation files. she says the case was cooked up by hardliners to discredit her father. but she does confirm for the first time that vladimir putin was questioned as part of the investigation. all those interviews and investigations with him, with putin, they look very unprofessional. it's a fact that they found nothing, they were very disappointed. they didn't succeed. in moscow, factions were manoeuvring. putin was being groomed as the successor to boris yeltsin. the battle was over who would have sway over the new leader. in february 2000, anatoly sobchak died suddenly at the age of 62.
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at the funeral, russia's new president was distraught. that was the first and last time everybody saw him crying in russia. i still remember it. one of the shocks i had was his reaction. he was totally killed by this. but what killed sobchak? to this day, that remains a mystery. the original autopsy was inconclusive, and many were suspicious, including sobchak‘s widow, ksenia's mother. she had her own autopsy performed but instead of making the results public, she keeps them locked in a safe in a secret location. today, the kremlin is still a place of rival factions. to threaten their power is to take a terrible risk. the girl with the silver spoon is not a girl any more. her family history may protect her,
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and yet... what, then, is the purpose of all this elaborate theatre? if ksenia is a threat to the regime, why let her run at all? i have spoken to a senior government official on the condition i could not quote them by name. i said, "what is the point of having an election when everybody acknowledges only one person can win?" they said, "look, this is a western invention that you have. we do have a classical democracy in russia. we have what is called a developing democracy." the truth is, russian democracy
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has stopped developing. it is frozen, paralysed by two certain facts: just as surely as putin will win the next election, he will also not be around forever. behind the walls of the kremlin, powerful people are playing games. ksenia sobchak is a pawn. some factions are pushing herforward. others want to hold her back. the girl with the silver spoon knows all this. but she thinks the pawn just
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might become the queen. that is my chess game. i'd play this option of going to elections, because i was thinking that i had the chance of going through, because of my name, because they underestimate me, because i have a past which they can always put on me, because they are not afraid of me as much as navalny. who is the better chess player — you or putin? i don't know. we will see in the end. but the end is not near. i am only starting.
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i cannot offer you spring or even average temperatures for this time of year, figures will still be slightly below in the week ahead but ican slightly below in the week ahead but i can tell you is the weather will not be as severe as the weekjust gone. gradually, temperatures creeping up and the snow starting to fill but still unsettled and that could add to publications with rain moving across england and wales and some put in showers on sunday. they can result in rapid thawing and issues with flooding. snow increasingly confined to higher ground and still in the cold air, scotla nd ground and still in the cold air, scotland is picking up wintry showers, especially in the north and east. the easterly wind keeping things warm here and further south, highs of eight or nine. still fetching air into the north of the uk from the east but were circulating this around low—pressure as opposed to blasting arrived at
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high that brought the beast from the east and that feeds the error across the muggy waters of the atlantic, modifying that so it is not as cold as the colder air we had last week. monday is still cold enough in the north to see more snow across scotla nd north to see more snow across scotland and to the south—west, the chance of heavy, thundery rain. elsewhere it is relatively quiet with some brightness, the golfer ernie patches of early mist and fog. up ernie patches of early mist and fog. up to 10 degrees in london and norwich. tuesday, the continued threat of snowfall across scotland and the wintry weather is not over here. strong winds in the north and further south, showers for england and wales and northern ireland and some could turn out to be quite potent but the should be sunshine in between and temperatures of 7—10 is very much different to the weekjust gone. low—pressure overnight on tuesday into wednesday and it looks like the snow to the far north will
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be quite persistent from scotland into the middle of the week. still the chance for some disruption here, particularly for the far north with strong winds as well. elsewhere, there could be slow—moving showers, some of them could be quite intense but in some brightness it will feel so but in some brightness it will feel so different to last week with temperatures into double figures. u nsettled temperatures into double figures. unsettled on thursday with the risk of heavy rain for the south and east and showers from the west and noticed the white showing its hand. it looks like they could turn wintry, particularly on higher ground. the reason we're not entirely out of the woods is it is still sitting in the colder air, mild air is to the south of us in europe at the moment and we sit to the north of the jet stream and until that jet stream buckles the north of the jet stream and until thatjet stream buckles north, it will not bring the milder air. later in the period it does look like it moves to the north, the end of next week, briefly bringing average temperatures and a little
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above to the far side of the british isles and then the jet pushes eastwards and the colder air digging behind it and it also buckles and that brings a big area of low pressure a cross that brings a big area of low pressure across the british isles so next weekend is very wet and windy, particularly further south behind the low. i must stress, nothing is severe or the low. i must stress, nothing is severe oi’ extensive as the low. i must stress, nothing is severe or extensive as the weather we have had lately. further ahead, not as cold, staying unsettled the potentially some wet and windy weather affecting many parts of the british isles into next weekend. this is bbc news. the headlines at 10pm: an end to the freezing weather is coming but thousands of homes tonight remain without power. high tides and strong winds mean several flood warnings in place as the snow melts. further travel disruption is expected. three men have been charged with manslaughter and arson over an explosion in leicester, which left five people dead and a number of people injured. and video assistant referees are set to be used at this year's world cup in russia,
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