this is bbc news, i'm julian worricker. the headlines at 9pm. new zealand's prime minister vows to reform the country's gun laws after 49 people are killed in a mass shooting at at two mosques in christchurch. there have been attempts to change oui’ there have been attempts to change our laws in 2005, 2012 and after an inquiry into thousand 17. now is the time for change. bangladesh, india, and indonesia all say some of their citizens were killed in the shooting and others are unaccounted for. everybodyjust ran towards the back doors save themselves. i said to her on the phone, your husband has been shot outside the mosque. don't come through here but go to the hospital and wait for him.

the suspect‘s been identified as brenton tarrant, a 28—year—old australian — he's due to appear in court in christchurch. we'll bring you all the latest developments in new zealand. in other news this evening. control of one of britain's biggest government contractors, interserve, has moved to a new company after administrators were appointed. the firm says the deal will help to protect services and jobs. and coming up at 9:30 — allegations of an elephant poaching problem in botswana spark a political row. good evening. in the last hour the prime minister of new zealand jacinda ardern, has been speaking about the shooting dead of 49 people at two

mosques in christchurch. she said that gun laws would be tightened up, mosques would remain closed and a high police presence would be maintained. she also announced she is to visit christchurch later — and said that all the people of new zealand were grieving together. the gunman opened fire during friday prayers he drove up to the al noor mosque and began shooting as he entered the building at around 1:40 in the afternoon local time. there was then a second shooting outside the linwood mosque nearby. the gunman identified himself as a 28—year—old australian and filmed the shootings — broadcasting it all live on social media. ms ardern said it was one of new zealand's darkest days. three people have been arrested in relation to this event. 0ne

australian citizen will appear in court today charged with murder. this individual has travelled around the world with sporadic periods of time spent in new zealand. they were not a resident of christ church, in fa ct not a resident of christ church, in fact they were currently based elsewhere at the time of this event. inquiries are ongoing to establish whether the other two who were arrested were directly involved with this incident. the fourth person who was arrested yesterday was a member of the public who was in possession of the public who was in possession ofa of the public who was in possession of a firearm —— possession. with the intention of assisting police. they have since been released. police are working to build a picture of anyone who might be involved and all of their activities prior to this event. none of those apprehended had

a criminal history either here or in australia, and as i said last night. they were not on any watch lists either here or in australia. i want to be very clear, though. 0ur intelligence community and police are focused on extremism of every kind. given global indicators around the far right extremism our intelligence community has been stepping up their investigations in this area. the individual charged with murder had not come to the attention of the intelligence community nor the police for extremism. i have asked our agencies this morning to work swiftly on assessing whether there was any activity on social media or otherwise that should have triggered

a response. their work is already under way. today as the country grieves we are seeking answers. i wa nt to grieves we are seeking answers. i want to speak specifically about the firearms used in this terrorist act. iam firearms used in this terrorist act. i am advised that there were five guns used by the primary perpetrator. two semi automatic weapons and two shotguns. the offender was in possession of a gun license, i'm advised that this was acquired in november of 2017. a lever action firearm was also found. while work has been done as the chain of events that led to both the holding of this gun license and the possession of these weapons i can tell you one thing right now, our gun laws will change. there have been attempts to change our laws in

2005, 2012, and after an inquiry into thousand 17. now is the time for change. there's the questions being asked of how this person was able to enter the country and undertake this act of terror. i have instructed them to report your cabinet on monday on this sequence of events with a view to strengthen oui’ of events with a view to strengthen our systems on a of events with a view to strengthen oui’ systems on a range of events with a view to strengthen our systems on a range of fronts including but not limited to firearms, border controls, enhanced information sharing with australia and any practical reinforcement of oui’ and any practical reinforcement of our watchlist processes. the new zealand prime minister speaking in the last hour. 0ur corresopndent hywel griffith is in new zealand and reports now on how the country's worst terrorist attack unfolded. fear etched on their faces, people fled christchurch's mosques looking for safety as armed police searched the city's street trying to track down the gunmen.

worshippers say he shot indiscriminately, walking from room to room, sparing no one in his path. i was hearing that shooting after shooting after shooting. it went on about six minutes or more, and i could hear screaming and crying. i saw some people were dropped dead. when the firing started, i had a look from over the fence there. there was one guy, changing the gun and taking another one, because he parked on this side, next to the mosque house. and he just took the gun and then firing started again, you know. a man identifying himself as australian—born brenton tarra nt live streamed his attack on facebook. earlier, he had published a 73 page document full of anti—islamic hatred online, as well as images of his weapons, his slogan scrawled on them by hand.

the attack targeted two mosques in christchurch. at around 1:40pm local time, police responded to reports of shots being fired at the al noor mosque in the centre of the city. at least 41 people were killed here. the second shooting was a short drive away at the linwood mosque, where at least seven people were killed. one other died in hospital. police also defused several explosive devices attached to a vehicle. i heard and saw what i thought were firecrackers, and i saw young fellows running down the street. and then, all of a sudden, it got quite violent, and i thought, no, that's not firecrackers. and they started falling. and one felljust to the left of my car, and one fell to the right. and then the guy on the street, he was trying help his wife. and the other guy, i could see, he was in bad shape, but i couldn't get to him, because that was where directly

the gunfire was coming from. and the guy i was compressing, he was trying to ring his wife, and i managed to get it. i answered the phone, and i said to her, your husband's been shot outside the mosque. i said, don't come here, but please go to the hospital and wait for him. then i kept talking to him, and she was at the hospital waiting and he wasn't to give up. we did the best we could for him until we got him some help. the manhunt through christchurch eventually ended with a car being rammed by the police and a suspect being wrestled to the ground. four people had been arrested. one has now been released. we never assume that there aren't other people involved. that's why we've got an immense presence out there across canterbury and right across new zealand, but we don't have named or identified people

that we are looking for. it would be wrong to assume that there is no one else. the city's emergency services remain on high alert. christchurch's hospital has been treating dozens of people with gunshot wounds and is closed to all other admissions. late into the night christchurch has remained a city on lockdown. there is genuine fear that there may yet be further attacks. across the country, all mosques have been ordered to close their doors. for the very first time, new zealand's terror threat level has been raised to high. new zealand's prime minister swiftly condemned the shootings as an act of terror and reassured the country's small muslim population that they should not have to live in fear. the deep sense of shock felt in new zealand is echoed around the world, messages have been sent from the pope, president trump and the queen. new zealanders are astonished that this could have happened. you don't think something like this could happen in new zealand or christchurch,

we are such a small community, we are kind and loving. i do not understand why someone would hurt us like this in such a way like an animal. why would you treat us like that? in times of such sorrow there is little that can comfort people today as they confront the question of how such violent extremism could have been allowed to fester here. so the gunman said he was a 28—year—old australian called brenton tarrant. 0ur security correspondent gordon corera has been trying to find out more about him — and about his motives. brenton tarrant, seen here in his car in an image he streamed live on the internet. moments later the 28—year—old would enter a mosque to kill. what do we know about him? born in australia he travelled widely, seen here it is thought in pakistan, and he also visited the united arab emirates. before the attack he published a 73 page document online.

he describes himself as an ordinary working class white man who had an ordinary family, but also as a racist, fascist and nationalist. he said he wanted to target what he called invaders to incite violence and spread fear. he showed an arsenal of weapons in the boot of his car and two there is he appears to have posted images of some of the weapons on social media and had written names on them, including other people who had attacked muslims and historic battles. he said he was not a member of any organisation or acting under orders, but had contact with many nationalist groups. should the authorities have known about him? that question was asked of the police chief. it is a very good question. what i want to tell you right now is that we had no agency which had any information about these people. i can also tell you that i have been

in contact with my australian colleagues and they have no information on them until either. eight years ago norway was hit by one of the worst extreme right—wing terror attacks. dozens of left—wing teenagers shot dead. tarrant said this was an inspiration even claims to have had contact with the killer. he also says he supported the attack at finsbury park mosque in london in 2017 when darren 0sborne rammed a car into worshippers. and on one of the weapons is the word rather, a reference to the child sex abuse scandal in the north of england, leading to questions about whether he could have links in the uk. this is obviously an emerging and fast moving picture but we will be resolute in pursuing all lines of investigation if there are any links that need to be pursued. that is what we will do. there has been growing concern about the rise in extreme right—wing activity here in the uk over

the last few years, that is why in the last six months for the first time the security services m15 have become involved in investigating it. tarrant says he only recently decided on christchurch as his target. the authorities in new zealand and others around the world will now be focusing on this threat with a new urgency. the man alledgly responsible for carrying out these attacks had published a manifesto identifying himself with extreme right—wing views. many of those cited by brenton tarrant are in the united states. and we can speak now to david neiwert, author of "alt—america: the rise of the radical right in the age of trump". david, good evening. good evening. i would like to express my sorrow to my friends in i was there just last

september and i stayed not far from this synagogue, so it's heartbreaking. especially for a city that's already seen so much tragedy. i mentioned what people might find in america if they were looking for this kind of warped view of the world, would they find it quite easily if they wanted to look? yes. it's actually very easy to find. islamic phobia has kind of become pervasive on the american right over the past eight years. in particular on the radical right. interestingly enough a lot of the people that others saw as inspiration were american people like robert spencer who runs jihad american people like robert spencer who runsjihad watch as well as some

of these other notorious islamic popes who were running a propaganda mill outside of the united states that demonises muslims in the way that demonises muslims in the way that the nazis demonized people in the run—up to the holocaust. that the nazis demonized people in the run-up to the holocaust. and there was suggestion that he was specifically looking in the united states as far as we can tell. he obviously got a lot of these ideas from some of these american ideologues and it's not surprising because it's unfortunately become pa rt because it's unfortunately become part of the scene here. let me explore that with you. why do you say that is happening? well, a lot of this has to do with the rise of movements like the old rate, and a lot of the recruitment that goes

with it includes a lot of the online radicalisation that we are seeing of younger white men taking place in chat rooms like 8chan where this gentleman spent a lot of time as well as video gaming rooms. i don't know about you, but i'm really concerned that this guy was actually very much inspired by the idea of video gaming because certainly video that he released of the shooting was perfectly reminiscent of a first—person shooter video game. it's one thing, though, isn't it to back or take an interest in views that a lot of people might find it distasteful? it's quite another to escalate that to an act of violence on the scale. well, that's sort of

the cycle of these hateful ideologies. they start out with just a lot of words but as it happens these words have a long historic effect of driving people into acts of violence. the more you demonise other people, the more you are doing with that language essentially is making it legitimate to have acts of violence against them. and clearly the fact that you can now spread this online, unnoticed by most people who don't know where to find it is an added incentive for some. yes. especially in platforms like youtube and social media like facebook and twitter it's incredibly easy to get away with this stuff. some of the leaders have been called out, alex jones some of the leaders have been called out, alexjones has been kicked off youtube and yet you can still find a

lot of alex jones videos youtube and yet you can still find a lot of alexjones videos on youtube and a lot of conspiracy theorists on youtube, because they are not really taking this seriously. they are paying a lot of lip service to the need to get this stuff off of these platforms, but they are not doing anything about it because they see it as free speech. when in fact with this ideology is about is destroying free speech. they would argue the are trying to do stuff about this. what do you say they should be doing more? well, they should be much more aggressive in getting rid of conspiracy is him and racism and white nationalist ideology on these platforms. it is simply a lot of these characters that are still on these characters that are still on these platforms. they don't take it

seriously. 0ne these platforms. they don't take it seriously. one of the things that happens on the social media platforms is that they have actually hired moderators to try to weed to some of this stuff out. what they have been finding is that the moderators are themselves falling down the rabbit holes and conspiracy theory rabbit holes because they go into it thinking that it's just words and they are not, nobody is getting the proper understanding that this stuff is incredibly toxic, and it's also mostly lies and smears and it's also mostly lies and smears and false information. we are in an age now we cannot really tell what's false and what's not, and that has to do with the spread of fake news on social media. maybe it will take

something of this horrific scale to change that. one of the biggest problems we have is it's notjust social media, i think there's a problem with our mainstream media. the reality is that we are actually a wash in a real high tide of online radicalisation of young white males. u nfortu nately radicalisation of young white males. unfortunately no one in the mainstream media seems to want to talk about it. no one really wants to examine it. we are kind of in denial about it here in the united states i think, but it's staring us in the face but we cannot afford to and ignore any longer. thank you. earlier i spoke to qari asim mbe, who is the imam at leeds mosque, and i asked him if he was concerned about the type of islamophobia exibited by the shooter

happening in the uk britain is one of the most tolerant countries in the world. but we cannot be complacent about the erosion of one of our core values, tolerance. on a daily basis, we are seeing human beings attack on the streets, and online anti—muslim sentiments are on the rise. just today, we might think that actually this new zealand attack happened in distant shores. but actually, there are reports that an individual shouted outside a mosque, saying that attacks should have happened here rather than in new zealand. so it is a daily occurrence for some people, but definitely something that the muslim community is very concerned about. we are deeply anxious and concerned about the growing levels of anti—muslim hatred.

and as you talk about the incident in leeds today, how much have you been able to move around the city and talk to people in different places about their concerns that inevitably have risen as a result of this? muslims are deeply concerned and anxious about the growing levels of islamaphobia and the threat that is posed by the far right. at the same time, we have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and appreciation shown by people across the globe, including politicians, faith leaders, civic leaders, all of them have come together to say that they stand together with muslims. and we hope that standing together can be put into action, so we can criminalise islamaphobia. obviously the third becomes real when a person outside a mosque

shouts that actually, look, the killing should have taken here, the shooting should have taken place here, we have thousands of people coming to mosques. they don't want their mosque to be turned into a confined place, places where people cannot openly go. so we are grateful to the police who have shown their support, and the visible police presence outside of mosques gives that reassurance to people. condolences have been paid all around the world to the attacks. the queen, new zealand's head of state, led tributes saying she'd been deeply saddened by events in christchurch, and that "at this tragic time her thoughts and prayers were with all new zealanders." labour leaderjeremy corbyn laid a wreath at new zealand's embassy in london. donald trump tweeted. .. "my warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of new zealand after the horrible massacre in the mosques. god bless all!" a minute's silence was held at the un security council in honour of the victims in ankara,

a a sermon was read before friday prayers. the attacks have provoked anger and unrest in the muslim community, in istanbul, an impassioned demonstration was held to condemn the attack. and we'll find out how this story, and many others, are covered in tomorrow's front pages at 10:a0pm and 11:30pm this evening in the papers. 0ur guestsjoining me tonight are kate proctor, political correspondent at the evening standard, and henry zeffman, political correspondent at the times. control of one of britain's biggest government contractors, interserve, has moved to a new company after administrators were appointed. it comes after shareholders rejected a rescue deal for the company, which has 115,000 uk staff, and nearly 70,000 across the world. the company cleans schools and hospitals, runs catering and probation services, and manages construction projects.

the jury at the trial of the match commander at the hillsborough disaster, david duckenfield, has been told that the decision to prosecute him is "breathtakingly unfair". his defence barrister made the comments in his closing statement. mr duckenfield, who's 7a, denies the gross negligence manslaughter of 95 supporters who died in a crush at the football ground in 1989. 0ur correspondent judith moritz reports. the hillsborough disaster claimed 96 lives and affected many more. today, it was said that it must be one of the most heartbreaking cases ever to come before an english court. david duckenfield is accused of causing the deaths, but his defence say he's been singled out unfairly and held responsible for other people's incompetence. they say the hillsborough stadium was potentially lethal, badly designed and riddled with faults. defending david duckenfield, ben myers qc said, it's like giving a captain a ship that's already

sinking and thenjudging him by how well he's sailing it. the jury were shown this photograph of crushing, eight years before the disaster. they heard there was a history of near misses at hillsborough, but nobody had told mr duckenfield about past problems. in 1989, the crush was fatal when the terraces became dangerously full. this safety barrier collapsed under the pressure. 96 men, women and children lost their lives, the youngest a boy of ten, the oldest a pensioner. ben myers said, no matter how great the jury's sympathy may be, convicting david duckenfield as a way of expressing it would be very wrong indeed. he said he was being judged by different standards to others. earlier today, the prosecution said the trial was 30 years late, but it was about david duckenfield's failures, and not those of other people. judith moritz, bbc news, preston.

two young brothers have died in a hit—and—run car crash in wolverhampton. sanjay singh, aged ten, and paw—anveer singh, who was almost two, were in a car being driven by their mother when it crashed with an audi. police have urged the driver of the audi, who left the scene, to come forward. the westminster leader of the democratic unionists — nigel dodds — says he's had "good" discussions with cabinet ministers ahead of a third vote on the brexit deal. the dup's support is seen as key to persuading more conservative mps to back the agreement when it goes before the commons next week. we want to get a deal, we have always been in that frame of mind. we don't want to leave without a deal, but a lot will depend on terms of what the government is able to do in terms of providing those guarantees that are necessary to assuage oui’ concerns.

thousands of children in the uk have again left their classrooms to join a global day of protests against climate change. they took place in several major towns and cities, this was in brighton, and there were similar ones around the world. they have been inspired by the swedish teenager, 16—year—old greta thunberg, who's staging a long—running protest outside parliament in stockholm. now it's time for a look at the weather with sarah keith lucas. good evening. we've eventually got some quieter weather on the cards as we head through next week, but we aren't there just yet. it looks unsettled through the weekend with heavy rain arriving from the west. through tonight, some of that rain will turn to snow over northern ireland and northern england. chilly conditions for the northern half of the uk, much milder further south overnight. saturday's weather will be dominated by the strong, gusty westerly winds, particularly across england and wales. heavy rain working into the west through the course of the day.

gusts of 40—60 mph in the south. further north isn't as windy, but heavy snow across the high ground of scotland and heavy showers in ireland with a rumble of thunder. real contrast in those temperatures on saturday. as that cold front pushes towards the east heading into sunday, a different feeling that day. still some sunshine with wintry showers in the north. temperatures 7—10dc, feeling colder in that wind chill. bye— bye. hello, this is bbc news. the latest new democrat headlines. but there have been attempts to change our laws in 2005, 2012, and after an inquiry in 2017. now is the time for change.