welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: claims that countless civilians were killed in mosul during last year's coalition air strikes against is militants. no one destroyed us except the coalition. look, this was one of my daughters who got killed. this was one of my sons. anger in armenia, as parliament blocks the opposition leader's bid to become prime minister. he's called for strikes across the country. the youtube stars encouraging students to cheat. some are being paid to promote essay—writing websites to students. and vatican treasurer, cardinal george pell, is expected to face two separate trials in australia on sexual assault charges. and tight security in rome as liverpool fans gather ahead of wednesday's champions‘ league semi—final. nine months since the group known

as islamic state was defeated in its stronghold of mosul, and it's still not clear how many iraqi civilians died in the battle. the range of estimates is huge from at least 1,000 to more than 10,000. and reports suggest many were killed in coalition airstrikes. so far, only the us and australia have accepted any responsibility for civilian deaths. the official line from britain's ministry of defence is that officials have seen "no evidence." 0ur defence correspondent, jonathan beale, reports from mosul. this is the graveyard of the group called islamic state. it is also the tomb of an unknown number of civilians. the old city of mosul, where the extremists made their last stand.

defeated with the help of unrelenting coalition air strikes. making their way through the shattered shell of the city, a team of iraqi volunteers, trying to clear up the chaos. this was home to tens of thousands of people, trapped in the fighting. nine months on, it is still a toxic wasteland, littered not just with bombs, but bodies, too. they could be is fighters and their families, or the civilians they corralled to use as human shields. and next door, they have just found more. is suicide belts lie strewn in the rubble, but many innocents were killed alongside them.

there are a lot of victims from the air strikes and a lot of them are still buried under the rubble. we cannot pull them out with our bare hands. the coalition dropped or fired nearly 30,000 munitions on this one city. mostly american bombs, but british ones, too. the ministry of defence insists it has seen no evidence it caused any civilian casualties. but a source inside the coalition has told us, that is simply not true. we have used an actor's voice to protect his identity.

british airstrikes have caused civilian casualties on several occasions. to suggest this has not been done is nonsense. 0ur source told us of an raf strike on a truck bomb here in east mosul last year. he said two civilians were almost certainly killed in the blast, but the mod insists those killed were highly probably is fighters. uncertainty from the air and on the ground, too. this man says in the aftermath, women and men were screaming. he said some of them were wounded.

0thers told us, is were in the area, but the mod refused our request to view the cockpit video, nor will it reveal the co—ordinates of other british air strikes. but back in the old city, there is no doubt that many were killed by coalition bombs. no—one destroyed us except the coalition. look, this was one of my daughters who got killed. and this was one of my sons. translation: where, where, where did they take our civilians? there were just families in this house and in that house over there. so, why did it get hit? was isis there? the mod says it took extreme care but cannot eliminate the risk to civilians. but it has never had anyone like this on the ground to investigate. there are just estimates of the numbers of civilians killed.

what looks like a macabre team photo is how these locals are trying to keep track of the dead. the coalition did help rid this city of the scourge of is, but at what cost? of the scourge of is, jonathan beale, bbc news, mosul. of the scourge of is, the leader of armenia's protest movement, nikol pashinyan, has insisted peaceful protests will continue. the governing party has blocked his efforts to become prime minister. in the coming hours, crowds are expected to take to the streets again in the capital yerevan. mr pashinyanhas called for a general strike. lebo diseko has the story. they had gathered here to watch what they see as democracy done. instead, thousands of supporters of nikol pashinyan were left stunned and disappointed, as parliament

voted against the popular opposition leader as prime minister. he gotjust 45 of the 53 votes he needed. for many, it is an attempt by the ruling republican party to block the people's choice. nikol pashinyan is now calling for a campaign of civil disobedience. the general strike from wednesday morning, with roads and airports blocked. it is a far cry from last week's celebrations on the streets of the capital, yerevan. scenes ofjoy after the unpopular prime minister was forced to resign. it was called the "velvet revolution", change won without a bullet fired and it followed weeks of protest, demanding the prime minister step down. nikol pashinyan was the man many wanted in thatjob, earlier he warned mps of major unrest if they failed to vote him in.

translation: armenian people are reviving. we are in an awakening period, this is national and is unstoppable. mr pashinyan is now urging supporters to stay on the streets to stop the ruling party from stealing the people's victory. he says a revolution of love and tolerance continues. lebo diseko, bbc news. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. senior brexiteers have delivered what's described as an ultimatum to number 10 downing street, demanding the prime minister drop one of the british government's preferred options for customs arrangements after brexit. senior ministers meet for a key meeting on wednesday. at least seven people have been killed by militants north of baghdad. the security forces are scouring the town of tarmiya for suspected members of the islamic state group.

the government denied a claim by islamic state that it had taken control of the area. during the annual may day protests in paris, police have arrested nearly 200 masked demonstrators. reports suggest anarchist groups broke away from a peaceful rally to set fire to vehicles and smash shop windows, in protest at president macron‘s economic reforms. four people, including a police officer, were slightly hurt. cardinal george pell will face two separate trials over allegations of historical sexual offences. at a hearing in melbourne, the defence and prosecution teams agreed that the 76—year—old should face one trial over allegations dating back to his time as a priest in ballarat in the 1970s, and another relating to his time as archbishop of melbourne 20 years later. the bbc‘s hywell griffith has more. every stage this case has drawn a huge amount of media attention. 0nce again, cardinal pell had a police escort to take into the court. the hearing and sight pretty brief, mostly setting out the timetable for what is to come. —— was. they said

he should face two separate trials. they talked about his time as a priest in ballarat. it was agreed allegations should form a separate trial the allegations related to his time in melbourne in the 1990s when he was the archbishop. both trials will take five weeks each. in total, ten weeks. we do not yet have a timetable for when they will actually begin. inside court, george pell remained silent and was asked to stand at the end simply to be told to return to court in two weeks where we will learn more about the timetable. clearly, this is a case which will continue to draw huge attention. we were reminded yesterday he is still officially on leave as treasurer for the vatican.

what happens in this case will have repercussions throughout the roman catholic church. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: scotland moves to cut binge—drinking. it is the first country in the world to bring in minimum pricing for alcohol. and the youtube stars urging viewers to cheat. nothing, it seems, was too big to withstand the force of the tornado. the extent of the devastation will lead to renewed calls for government help to build better housing. internationally, there have already been protests. sweden says it received no warning of the accident. indeed, the russians at first denied anything had gone wrong. only when radioactive levels started to increase outside russia were they forced to admit the accident. for the mujahideen, the mood here is of great celebration. this is the end of a 12—year war for them. they've taken the capital, which they have fighting

for for so long. it was 7:00am in the morning, the day when power began to pass from the minority to the majority, when africa, after 300 years, reclaimed its last white colony. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: there are fresh claims that countless civilians were killed in mosul during last year's coalition airstrikes against the so—called is militants. armenia's opposition leader has called for his supporters to join a campaign of civil disobedience after parliament refused to choose him as prime minister. a bbc investigation has discovered that some stars on the video—sharing platform youtube are being paid to promote essay—writing websites to school children and students on a big scale. a company based in ukraine is paying the online personalities to encourage people

to pay for essays. britain's universities minister told the bbc that the revelations undermined education and said youtube, which is owned by google, had a moral responsibility to act. 0ur education editor bra nwen jeffreys has this exclusive report. back in the action, boy! youtube channels reach millions each day. i'm back with another prank. we're checking out a compilation of really stupid people! the creators have huge influence, influence that business wants to buy. want to give a shout—out to all of you... i'm going to ask for 5k likes if you want a part two this time. our investigation has uncovered the youtube stars selling cheating, paid by a company in ukraine, promoting a service to students that could land them in serious trouble, targeting teenagers using the people they trust. and don't waste your

time doing your essays. let these people do it for you. if you guys are struggling in school or college, check out edubirdie.com to hire a super—smart guy to do your essays for you. super—smart geek. plagiarism—free! we're helping you cheat. you won't get in any troubles, guaranteed. it's going to get you an a+. this is clearly wrong, it's clearly wrong because it is enabling cheating, potentially on an industrial scale. it's normalising cheating. we're not talking about the video ads you usually see. these are youtubers themselves, talking about pranks, gaming, dating. then they tell you about a company called edubirdie. ok, so i'm going to interrupt this video and give a shout—out to the sponsor, edubirdie.com.

if you guys are playing too much fortnite and have no time to write your essays... go to edubirdie.com, 100% plagiarism free. this is for every school kid watching my videos, i know that there's loads of you out there. we found more than 250 channels with videos sponsored by edubirdie, videos viewed hundreds of millions of times, and that's just the ones in english. some youtubers say they'd never accept this kind of sponsorship. how do you balance studies with social life? ibz and courtney are students at cambridge university. they promote hard work and study on youtube channels. having seen the edubirdie ads, were they in any doubt this was the selling of cheating? no, not at all. in plain sight, i think as soon as you hear it, whether the influencer mentions cheating or not, you know, ok, i'm not doing this work, i'm about to hand in work that i didn't write, it's not copy and pasted, it won't be plagiarised,

but it's not my work, it's cheating. how powerful is that message when it comes from a youtuber you trust? you will see big youtubers saying it, and that can influence small youtubers to promote it as well, and then it will have a massive impact on young children and teenagers. and now imagine you have all these essays to do, and now you have a solution that is being promoted by your favourite person. so how easy is it for students to buy essays? we asked edubirdie.com to write two from scratch, one english gcse, the other degree level. we got them marked. a "c" for the english essay and 60% for the university assignment. not quite the a+ promised on youtube. edubirdie told us youtubers had creative choice and total freedom in what they said and it was clear that anything obtained through the website should only be used as a sample or a reference. but it's notjust adults being offered cash. this 15—year—old is one of several children who have accepted edubirdie money. they basically write your essays for you and it's100% plagiarism—free. his mum told us she was shocked.

she didn't know her son was taking sponsorship. it's so insidious. they‘ re making it look like it's cool, actually, like it is a lifestyle choice. we showed some of the videos to the universities minister. these are the people to do it for you, written by doctors... cheating is wrong, it undermines quality, it undermines standards. never mind what edubirdie says, it is wrong. this is something that is corrosive to education, and i think youtube has got to step up to the plate and exercise some responsibility here. i wanted to speak to someone at youtube's london headquarters where some of their most successful channels are on display. instead, in a statement, the company said this. and the company added they "would be working with youtubers so they better understand that in—video promotions must not promote dishonest activity."

if you can't be bothered to write your essays. the perfect option for you! none of the youtubers would do an interview. alpay b told us, "whether a student wants to cheat or not, it's totally their choice. everyone's got their own hustle." branwen jeffreys, bbc news. mark zuckerberg has told facebook‘s annual conference for developers that the company is working on a new privacy control that will allow users to delete their browsing history. responding to the uproar over the misuse of millions of people's personal data by the political consultancy cambridge analytica, the facebook ceo called it a major breach of trust. he insisted the platform was taking a number of steps to make sure it never happens again. a day after a bbc investigation

into the illegal sale of codeine cough syrup, nigeria's government has banned its import and production. thousands of young people are sourcing it without prescription, often from employees of pharmaceutical companies, and becoming addicted. adejuwon soyinka reports. the scale of the addiction to the codeine cough syrup has proven too ha rd to codeine cough syrup has proven too hard to fight, and after carrying out its own research the government has made a move to try and stop it. earlier on tuesday, a nigerian drugs

company, emzor, said it had stopped to distribute in its codeine cough syrup to distribute in its codeine cough syru p after to distribute in its codeine cough syrup after our documentary. going undercover, i met a pharmacist who supplies bottles of cough syrup with codeine to gangs, who then distribute it illegally. they put me in touch with a emzor executive, who boasted of how many bottles he could supply. he has now been sacked by emzor. we uncovered the trick that enable tens of thousands of people to get the cough syrup to feed their addiction. the company has also responded. the government now hopes that its

move to ban the production of the codeine cough syrup will help curb the addiction, and stop what it called the gross abuse of codeine. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news: a new report from the world health organization reveals that 90% of the world's population breathes polluted air. the who also warns that the world's poorest people are the most vulnerable, with air pollution responsible for 7 million deaths every year. a fire in a skyscraper in sao paulo, in brazil, has left at least one person dead. the 26—storey building was engulfed in flames, and then collapsed. this was an abandoned office block, but it had been occupied by about 150 squatters. firefighters fear more people may have been trapped inside, and others killed in the collapse. a state of emergency has been

declared in northern arizona as a large timberfire declared in northern arizona as a large timber fire spreads through the forest. hundreds of people have been evacuated, and several homes burnt down. gates have been installed in venice to help control the flow of tourists at key attractions. the city is a unesco world heritage site, and attracts about 30 million visitors a year. that means large queues and clogged streets. the city's mayor says he is just trying to ensure the safety of visitors and residents. concerns have been expressed about the safety of liverpool fans travelling to italy for wednesday's champions league semi—final against roma, after a supporter was attacked last week at anfield. italian police have insisted they can guarantee the fans‘ safety as long as they stay within italian rules. 0ur sports editor dan roan reports from rome. singing. so far, only a handful of liverpool

fans may have travelled here for the club's biggest game in more than a decade, but the task of keeping them safe is well under way, the pressure on rome's police ahead of the deciding second leg of the champions league semifinal, as a major security operation at anfield, when one liverpool supporter was left in a critical condition after an attack by a group of roma ultras. here in the italian capital, english supporters have been targeted in recent seasons, but the man in charge of policing had this message. we can guarantee the safety of liverpool supporters, obviously, if they respect the rules. it's a tough challenge, but what is important for us is to enjoy — to leave the city for the citizen, for the english supporter, and for everyone. the 5,000 liverpool fans expected here at rome's olympic stadium have

‘gififfgwfl'eflf’? z7- * ”f "f” cup against roma on their very own ground, the hero of that famous night telling me it could provide inspiration for the current team.

we were not going to be beat, and we had this mental attitude, and i hope the players of today have got that, as well, that they're going to go there, they're going to get a result, and they're going to get to the final. that's the most important side of it. it's not about how well you play. it's about the result at the end of it. this afternoon, a touching moment as roma paid tribute to sean cox, the liverpool fan injured last week, with this message of support on their training shirts. both teams now aware that whoever prevails here will face the might of spain's serial winners, real madrid, in the final, after they came through their semifinal against bayern munich. dan roan, bbc news, rome. and you can get in touch with me and most of the team on twitter. i'm @bbcmikeembley. thank you for watching. good morning.

the day ahead is a "getting better" kind of day. after a particularly wet start for some, some heavy rain around first thing, rain will clear most areas at least through the day, and then we're into a story of sunshine and one or two showers. this is the weather system bringing in the wet weather overnight, into the morning. clearing away from western scotland, northern ireland as we start the day, so temperatures will take a little bit of a dip late in the night here. but elsewhere, not quite as cold a start to the day as we saw yesterday morning. but, for the commute, it will be a thoroughly wet one. eastern scotland, through a good part of central england and eastern wales, a few showers in the east. but a few get away with not too much wet weather early on, but it does turn wetter here through the middle part of the day. as the rain clears from central, western parts, we see sunshine and just one or two showers. some of those showers could be

wintry over the tops of the scottish mountains, some hail mixed in, too. and temperatures down a little bit on what we saw through tuesday, but pleasant enough in the south where you've got the sunshine. now, the rain will be last to clear east anglia, south—east, roughly late afternoon, early evening, and then it's clear skies here to take it into wednesday night. a few showers continuing for parts of scotland in particular, but most will be dry. but what does happen through wednesday night into thursday is that, with the jet stream dipping southwards just temporarily, we'll see some slightly cooler air push its way in. so it'll be a chillier start once again on thursday morning. don't be surprised, eastern scotland, central and eastern england, if there's a touch of frost in one or two areas. but a lovely, sunny start to the day here, before cloud increases from the west. in the west, we'll see sunny spells, but always a bit more cloud, and that cloud will thicken up in northern ireland, western scotland, produce some spots of drizzle, some heavier bursts of rain for 0rkney and shetland during the afternoon. but after that chilly start, south—westerly winds push in, temperatures will be on the rise once again. so, finish thursday and go into friday, we'll see the winds

fall a bit lighter across the south. there could be quite a bit of cloud to begin with, a bit misty in places, but the cloud will break up, some sunny spells coming through. the chance in some western parts of england and wales of a little bit of drizzle here and there, and that will be the case in scotland and northern ireland. but most will be dry, and when the cloud does break, milder air is working its way in. temperatures mid to high teens. and, with the jet stream then pushing to the north of us into the weekend, we bring ever—milder air to just about all. so temperatures will be a bit of a shocker for bank holiday weekend, and high pressure dominates, mainly across southern areas. have to watch these weather fronts bringing some occasional rain to scotland and maybe northern ireland, particularly through saturday night into sunday. but the general theme for the bank holiday weekend is things warm up, temperatures high teens, low 20s, and most places will stay dry. this is bbc news. the headlines: a source inside the coalition fighting the so—called islamic state militants has told the bbc he believes civilians were killed by british airstrikes on the iraqi city of mosul. so far only the us and australia have accepted any responsibility

for civilian deaths estimates range from at least a thousand to more than 10,000. the armenian opposition leader, nikol pashinyan, has called for a general strike against the governing republican party, which has voted against his election as prime minister. addressing tens of thousands of supporters in the capital yerevan, he urged them to block roads, railway stations and airports. a bbc investigation has discovered that some stars on the video—sharing platform youtube are being paid to promote essay writing websites to school children and students on a big scale. a company based in ukraine is paying the online personalities to encourage people to pay for essays. now on bbc news: hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk with me, zeinab badawi.