this is bbc news — the headlines at 2.30: three cabinet ministers face a call this is bbc news, i'm lukwesa burak. to resign, after going public the headlines at 2pm. with a warning they're prepared to delay brexit, rather than leave three cabinet ministers face a call to resign the eu without a deal. after going public with a warning they're prepared to delay brexit clashes in venezuela rather than leave as opposition activists attempt to bring humanitarian aid into the country from the eu without a deal. neighbouring colombia. here's the scene in the venezuelan if ministers or cabinet ministers border town of urena. cannot support the government's position, then they have to resign. polling stations are closing clashes in venezuela, as opposition activists attempt in nigeria, where millions to bring humanitarian aid of people have been voting into the country from in presidential and neighbouring colombia. parliamentary elections. polling stations are closing in nigeria, where millions of people have been the singer r kelly is due voting in presidential and parliamentary elections. to appear in court in chicago on a series of sexual abuse charges. here's the scene in lagos where votes are being counted. in rugby, wales go for a record 12th win in a row, the singer r kelly is due to appear as they face england later, in court in chicago on a series in the six nations in cardiff. of sexual abuse charges. in rugby, wales go for a record 12th win in a row as they face england now on bbc news — with the oscars

ceremony on sunday night — later in the six nations in cardiff. talking movies takes a look at the films and stars with a chance and coming up in half an hour, of taking home an award. talking movies comes from los angeles in the run—up to hollywood's biggest biggest night of the year — the oscars. good afternoon. three cabinet ministers have publicly demanded for the first time that brexit should be delayed if mps don't approve the prime minster‘s deal in the coming days. in a newspaper article, the work and pensions secretary, amber rudd, thejustice secretary, david gauke, and the business secretary, greg clark, say time is running out and that leaving the european union, without a deal, would be ‘disastrous‘. downing street said

theresa may is working hard to get a deal, adding, "that is where the cabinets "energy should be focused." susana mendonca has more. no comment from the business secretary as he left his home earlier but greg clark's views on a no deal track set are now loud and clear. he is one of three cabinet members do is to come out against the government line. in an interview with the daily mail, they warned it would be better to seek to extend article 50 and delay the date of departure rather than crash out of the european union on march 29. their comments have angered some conservative brexiteers. if ministers are cabinet ministers can't support the government's position, then they have to resign. the government's position is very clear, we are living on the 29th of march, something the prime minister has said 108 times. in the cabinet

—— in the commons. has said 108 times. in the cabinet -- in the commons. downing street hasn't responded to the accusation and said the prime minister is working hard to get a deal. the liberal democrat leader said the comments from members of the heart of cabinet made leaving with no deal less likely. we knew that the attempt to take a no deal off the table would be the big issue in parliament in the coming week and i think this tips the balance towards stopping the folly that the prime minister is trying to inflict on us. with time running out, the government has a tough week ahead. it hasn't confirmed yet whether they will be a new deal to vote on and backbench mps are putting forward their own plans to take control of their own plans to take control of the process, including one amendment to delay brexit if a deal isn't done by did -- to delay brexit if a deal isn't done by did —— mid—march. to delay brexit if a deal isn't done by did -- mid-march. i understand the chaos it caused. that can't make

you feel good. it doesn't. 0ne mp who resigned from the conservative party has faced voters in nottingham. the question will be how far cabinet members unhappy at the prospect of a no—deal brexit may be willing to go to stop it. it is a pretty direct challenge that has been issued, how significant is it? i think when you've got three cabinet list is saying something com pletely cabinet list is saying something completely different to what the government has been saying, that shows how afraid things have become. we have heard about divisions within cabinet and this seems to suggest that those cabinet members who want there to be no chance of there being a chance of no—deal brexit, making it very clear that they are willing to ta ke it very clear that they are willing to take action now. the key question is what action are they willing to take. we have various amendments coming up, would be very willing to

be voting with some of them to delay the article 50 process, that remains to be seen. if they did do that, you would expect cabinet members to resign from their positions, if they we re resign from their positions, if they were to vote against the government but we don't know at this stage if thatis but we don't know at this stage if that is what they will be doing. but we don't know at this stage if that is what they will be doingm isa that is what they will be doingm is a very busy few days. things haven't stopped this weekend for theresa may. she is going to chat with donald tusk at the eu meetings. theresa may is trying to get this deal and what we get from them is that she is working towards getting twigs to the deal so that she can put something back to parliament, unclear as to whether or not we'll get that in this coming week. there isa get that in this coming week. there is a lot of talk about whether or not they will be another meaningful vote, it is looking as though that will probably be kicked further down the road sometime in march but what we are expecting this week is for mps to again take the opportunity to try and seize control of the

process. for example, there is an amendment which is about delaying the article 50 process if there is no deal done by mid—march, and that is something that last time around, they didn't get enough support for that type of amendment, this time around they might get possible, we understand a lot of conservatives are very concerned and are thinking about voting without amendment. there is another amendment talking about potentially mps are backing theresa may's deal on the proviso that then there is a conservatory vote, so effectively another referendum, although they are calling it that, but where people would be able to vote on whether to accept theresa may's deal or to stick with the status quo, presumably stay within the eu. all of these various manoeuvrings going on with mps trying to find alternative ways out. if any of those amendments get through, that causes more problems for theresa may ata time causes more problems for theresa may at a time that is already extremely difficult for her as she is trying to get mps to back her deal. she co nsta ntly to get mps to back her deal. she constantly says it is my deal or no deal or no brexit. i think she is

hoping that will sway brexiteers on one side and remain as on the others. in this article, the three laid the blame squarely at the drg, if things go wrong. they make it very clear that they say that if the deal is not done, it is the fault of the e deal is not done, it is the fault of theerg. if deal is not done, it is the fault of the e r g. if there is no brexit as a result, they only have themselves to blame, that is what they say in this article so a direct challenge to the drg group which is a group of conservative backbenchers who support brexit, some of them on there to be a no—deal brexit, some of them support that idea. what these cabinet members are saying is that if there ends up being a scenario where we're heading for no deal but parliament is going to block that, and so they could end up not getting any of what want. the brexiteers, andrew bridge, basically saying he sees all of this is a conspiracy, in a sense, suggesting that somehow downing street and these cabinet members are working together to try and bully the

brexiteers into voting for a deal that they disagree with. downing street have said that not said that is what they are doing but what i have made clear to me is that theresa may is pushing ahead with trying to get a deal that she can get through parliament but of course these average times, you've got a lot of suspicion within parties, between parties, and of course, the same time, we had various members leaving their parties, both the conservatives and labour so uncharted territory, i think. thank you. the labour leaderjeremy corbyn has said that anti—semitism within his party and in society is unacceptable. nine labourmps quit the party this week with some complaining of a culture of anti—semitism within the party. mr corbyn was speaking at a rally in broxtowe in nottinghamshire, the contituency of the former conservative mp anna soubry, who this week resigned to join the independent group.

when people, as i said, are racist towards each other, then we oppose it. in any way whatsoever. if anyone is racist towards anyone else in our party, wrong, out of court, out of order, totally and absolutely unacceptable. anti—semitism is not a cce pta ble unacceptable. anti—semitism is not acceptable in any form in any way whatsoever anywhere within our society. i'm proud to lead a party, proud to lead a party that was the first ever to introduce race relations legislation and also to pass the equality act and the human rights act into the statute book. and we are going to take all these issues further forward. clashes have erupted on venezuela's border with colombia, as supporters of the opposition leader, juan guaido, prepare to move aid across the frontier. troops have fired tear gas at protestors after venezuela's president nicolas maduro ordered the border to be closed. the opposition leaderjuan guaido

says without the help of foreign aid, thousands of venezuelans could die as the country battles food shortages and hyper inflation. let's talk to our correspondent in venezuela, katy watson. quite a tense scene building up there on the borders. just update us with what is going on. so, yes, that's right, on the border, tensions are riding —— rising. tear gas has been fired. there have also been a number of soldiers who have defected and decided to decide —— aside with one wader. three or four people have already said they are going to back the interim president juan guaido. at the moment, the lorries are still waiting on the brazilian side and colombian side of

the border. waiting for this aid to be allowed through. nicolas maduro has remained firm, he says this aid will not pass, that it is a us orchestrated show and he told the armed forces to remain loyal to him. this will be a test today, to see exactly how many people are still remaining loyal to the nicolas maduro and how many feel they actually want to change a venezuela. thank you very much. polls in nigeria are closing where people have been voting to choose a new president and parliament. it is the biggest election in african history with more than 70 million voters registered to vote. election officials say they've solved logistical problems that led to it being delayed by a week. the main presidential candidates are the current president, muhammadu buhari and the former vice president, atiku abubakar. 0ur nigeria correspondent mayenijones reports.

keen to get on with it, many voters started voting from first light. the main presidential candidates also got in early. the incumbent president voted in his hometown in the north—west and shortly after, his main opponent, former vice president cast his vote in the north—east. both candidates are seasoned politicians in their 70s but 50% of the electorate here is under the age of 35. i believe that i want to see more young people coming out to stand for election. many were concerned that a postponement has affected the turnout. we cast the vote last week,. whoever turnout. we cast the vote last week, . whoever wins turnout. we cast the vote last week,. whoever wins this election will have to face a number of challenges. of which is insecurity. just this morning there were reports of attacks on the north—east of the country. the country. the authorities say they were just trails but the timing on voting day has been questioned. nigerians will

be hoping for someone who can handle these issues. 0ur correspondent tomi 0ladipo is in the capital, abuja. 0bviously obviously the polls closed, people are in the queue and still able to vote but essentially how has turnout lea pt vote but essentially how has turnout leapt today? -- looked today. millions of nigerians have come out. we're not sure of the numbers, we have not been given official figures as to how many people did show up. but as you mentioned there, people who before two o'clock theoretically, those who arrived before two o'clock will be allowed to vote. but in many places, they have been delays and voting started much later. in some cases, hours after it was meant to begin. so i suppose in some places we will be hearing the voting going on well into the night. and today the country has been more or less under

a state of curfew because you are not really allowed to move around whilst voting is going on, what is the atmosphere like? well, i think for a lot of nigerians that they have braved the conditions here in abuja for example the heat has been pretty harsh. but people are still spending hours coming out to vote, but in some other parts of the country, there have been disruptions, political tensions and bugs employed in certain parts to disrupt the vote going on there. so depends on which part of the country you are looking at. in the north—east of the country, in the states where she had it groups are linked, broken her arm and jihadist militants and their offshoots have been disrupting the flow of the voting there. we have had people flee from certain town same are not able to vote there. nigerian politics is notoriously fluid. there

are very bad lines when it comes to allegiances and ideological differences but the challenge is that the next leader faces are very clear. just what can they expect, whoever comes to power? you are right, this is more about the individuals so everybody goes after the personality that can rally then together and whoever also has the money to spend to rally people around them. but the issue is still remaining the same, it is the economic problems at the country has had over the last few years, the economy has been struggling, providing jobs for the masses here, we are talking, as the report earlier said, a huge population of young people who have come through a poor educational system and have got into thejob poor educational system and have got into the job market and there are no jobs or very fewjobs into the job market and there are no jobs or very few jobs available into the job market and there are no jobs or very fewjobs available for the whole lot. also, problems with security, as i mentioned. infrastructure as well, for example

electricity is still a major problem. these problems have been in nigeria for decades even so people are rallying around who they think will be able to deliver. a few hours ago, the incumbent president was already saying he is ready to congratulate himself as the winner. how long will it take before those results start to trickle in and a winner is announced? is it quite a quick turnaround? it is not a quick turnaround. the last election four yea rs turnaround. the last election four years ago, i think it took about three days before we heard the final results from the presidential vote. i reckon it'll be something similar today, especially with the kinds of delays we have had in many parts of country. we will hear possibly from the parliamentary votes, the presidential votes we are possibly talking monday or tuesday or thereabouts. thank you very much. the headlines on bbc news:

three senior cabinet ministers threaten to defy the prime minister and vote for a delay to brexit, if a deal is not voted through the commons in the coming days. clashes in venezuela — as opposition activists attempt to bring humanitarian aid into the country from neighbouring colombia. counting begins in the biggest election in african history — as millions of people in nigera vote in presidential and parliamentary elections. a man and woman in their 70s have died after a car they were in was hit by a van being pursued by police in south—east london. officers say a van was being driven erratically at speed in eltham and failed to stop before colliding with a carjust after midnight. the driver of the van has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. the incident itself has been referred to the independent 0ffice for police conduct. a 16—year—old boy

stabbed to death in a park in birmingham has been named. abdullah muhammad was found in sara park in the small heath area on wednesday evening. he's the second teenager to be stabbed to death in the city in a week. a murder investigation is under way but no arrests have been made. the musician r kelly has surrendered himself to police and been charged with a series of abuse and assault allegations. the singer, whose real name is robert sylvester kelly, denies all of the charges and is due to appear in court in chicago today. at one point he was the biggest name in r&b, but here r kelly is being is escorted by security as he handed himself into chicago police. # i believe i can fly... he has had massive crossover hits globally, through it all allegations and rumours of sexual abuse against underage girls

were never far away. and in 2008 he went to trial on charges of child pornography, after a tape surfaced allegedly showed him having sex with a 13—year—old. but he was acquitted when the jury decided the tape wasn't clear enough. some women were paid not to talk and others started to come forward to say what had gone on. i did realise that he had a problem and i couldn't fix it. now prosecutors feel they have enough evidence to press charges relating to four victims. earlier today, robert kelly was indicted before a cook county grand jury on ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. it appears a recent tv series speaking to alleged victims gave others the confidence to come forward, too, to try and getjustice against one of the biggest selling us stars — for abuse allegations going back more than two decades. monika plaha, bbc news.

the documentary maker ben zand made a film for the bbc called "r kelly: sex, girls, and videotapes". he explained the background to the allegations against the singer. it's been decades of claims, to be honest. it started, really, with aliyah. he was thought to have married the singer aliyah when he was 37 and she was 15. he's only ever been charged once before and this is really the significance of what has happened. he has been charged with ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, all based around for alleged victims, three of which are thought to be between 13 to 16. the significance is really that there have been a lot of rumours, a lot of allegations for a long time, and this is the second time it has been taken to court and he could actually face jail time so it is quite a big

moment. for years and years, he has been one of the most famous singers of all time but he has never been able to shake these allegations and over the last three years, more and more women have been coming out saying very similar things, saying he has been mistreating them, he has been locking them in rooms, there was allegations around sex cults, like her arm of women that he lived with. beyond that, allegations of sexual interactions with underage women. the allegation is based on a sex video that allegedly showed r kelly having sex with a woman who was claimed to have been 1a years old. he was acquitted of that because they couldn't identify who was in the video. it is thought now there may be another sex video that is even clearer that people in the video are saying specifically the ages of the people involved. that could change everything, really. but

he denies all of this as he always has, but it will be a long court case. let's go live to venezuela. this is the tienditas bridge, on the venezuelan side. this border is between venezuela and colombia. venezuelan police have been using tear gas to try and disperse protesters, as well as those are just attempting to cross the border into colombia. this is the town of iran are on the venezuelan side itself. we understand that the colombian president is said to help in efforts to move towards a venezuelan border which president maduro is trying to block, even ports he has blocked in the last few days. we are hoping to hearfrom the colombian president. he is going to be there, we've been told, with the

venezuelan opposition leader, the self proclaimed leaderjuan guaido. if they do speak, we will bring those details. so, a lot of tension building in venezuela, at various points in fact. victims of clergy sexual abuse are gathering in central rome to demand justice on the third day of a vatican summit on the protection of minors. participants have gathered at one of rome's main squares and will be marching towards the vatican. pope francis is meet the presidents of bishops' conferences from around the world to discuss the clerical sexual abuse crisis in the church. at least 84 people have died and 200 others have been taken to hospital after drinking bootleg alcohol in north east india. 12 people have been arrested in connection with making the drink in assam state. the deaths come less than a fortnight after more than 100 people died elsewhere in the country

from drinking lethal spirits. alasdair pal, a correspondent at reuters news agency in delhi, said incidents like this are not uncommon in india. india is still, you know, a developing country. there are very high taxes on international alcohol, it is beyond the reaches of lots of people and domestically brewed alcohol is very expensive so that is really whether bootleggers come in. we are told by officials in this case that some of these small boxes about alcohol being sold, for as little as ten rupees, which isjust less tha n little as ten rupees, which isjust less than 20 us cents, and so that puts it in the range of low paid workers, in this case tea plantation workers, in this case tea plantation workers who we are told had just received their weekly paychecks and we re received their weekly paychecks and were effectively celebrating the end of the week, and this is

u nfortu nately all of the week, and this is unfortunately all too of the week, and this is u nfortu nately all too often of the week, and this is unfortunately all too often what happens. the luxury apartment block which belonged to colombia's infamous drug lord, pablo escobar, at the height of his power and fame, has been demolished. the building in the colombian city of medellin had become a popular tourist attraction, which many local residents found offensive. a ceremony was held outside the building to honour the victims of the criminal organisation led by escobar. first—time buyers now make up the majority of home purchases bought with a mortgage in the uk, according to new figures. the last time that happened was 1995. according to the halifax, pendle in lancashire and copeland in cumbria are the most affordable areas for first time buyers. here's colin campbell. the number of first—time buyers has nearly doubled over the past decade, but with surging property prices it remains an uphill struggle for those trying to get on the

property ladder. according to the halifax, the average price paid for a typical first home hasjumped by 39%, from £153,000 in 2008 to more than £212,000 in 2018. first—time buyers are putting down an average deposit of more than £32,000, rising to more than £110,000 in london. the figures show a london first—time buyer's deposit could almost buy a home outright in the north—east of england or northern ireland. but it is in wales where first—time buyers are paying the lowest average deposit ofjust over £16,000. while there has been an increase in first—time buyers year on year across the uk, in scotland and wales numbers have fallen. terraced houses closely followed by semidetached properties continue to be the first time buyers' home of choice. despite a shortage of homes and challenges of raising a deposit, the halifax say the figures show healthy movement in the first

buyer property market. colin campbell, bbc news. beavers will become a protected species for the first time in new measures announced by the scottish government. farmers have condemned the decision after complaints over damns flooding prized agriculture land. beavers have been extinct in scotland for over 400 years, but were illegally released into the wild in tayside several years ago. now it's time for a look at the weather with nick miller. the best of the sunshine this afternoon is across our swathe of england. some of us have had a bit of patchy rain. in the western counties, there's a chance of you seeing that as we go into the afternoon. and ireland will brighten up the end of the day. any rain on this weather

front will die out as we go into tonight but northern england, southern england, northern ireland will have mist and felt with it too and some fog patches developing elsewhere overnight. mist, fog, more widespread tomorrow morning, dents in places as well. western parts of the uk, light winds and any mist and felt slow to clear in the morning, parts of yorkshire may hold onto it even into the afternoon. for most of us, it will slowly clear, we'll get to see some sunshine once again and perhaps temperature is not as high as they have been over the past few days but still well above average for this time of year.