this is bbc news 7 welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. our top stories... hundreds of people escape the besieged ukrainian city of mariupol — but the red cross�*s evacuation efforts have once again been frustrated. we can facilitate the passage, the safe passage forcivilians, once both parties come to agreement. and, unfortunately, until now, this has not materialised. ukraine's state nuclear agency accuses russian troops of shelling protesters in a town that houses europe's largest nuclear plant. the bbc makes it to an airport close to kyiv now liberated from russian control. a symbol of modernity, of ukraine's place in the world.

striking out across the globe. and now, it's a symbol of what's happened to the country. a nationwide curfew is in place in sri lanka to try to head off planned anti—government protests over the country's economic decline. hollywood actor will smith resigns from the oscars academy after slapping the comedian chris rock. today marks a0 years since the start of the falklands war when argentina invaded and occupied disputed islands they call the malvinas. hundreds of residents of of the besieged ukrainian city of mariupol have managed to escape in private cars and have arrived at reception centres to the north.

however a third attempt by the red cross to bring a fleet of dozens of buses to the city has once again been frustrated. they are spending the night en route and will resume theirjourney in the morning. the plan was to bring in desperately needed food and medicines and help evacuate several thousand people. on friday, they were forced to turn back, having failed to obtain the right security guarantees from russian troops. our correspondent anna foster is in lviv and told us more about evacuation efforts in mariupol. there is a real need to get this established, we are hearing from all

the parties involved, they want to get this established and i want to get this established and i want to get it done as soon as possible. find get it done as soon as possible. and for those people who remain in mariupol, conditions are getting worse by the day? the? mariupol, conditions are getting worse by the day?— mariupol, conditions are getting worse by the day? they are, and we start to see — worse by the day? they are, and we start to see more _ worse by the day? they are, and we start to see more pictures _ worse by the day? they are, and we start to see more pictures than - worse by the day? they are, and we start to see more pictures than we | start to see more pictures than we saw in the early days of what was going on there, and what we see is shocking and tragic. we see a city, thriving city destroyed, in many cases, buildings razed to the ground. we know there is very little medicine available, very little food. we saw those pictures a day or two ago of hundreds of people queueing outside a supermarket to try to get hold of a small amount of food that is left. we know there has been no electricity, no power in mariupol for weeks now, and when people do manage to escape, which they do manage in small numbers, i have spoken to one or two people who have spoken to one or two people who have get an out and their stories are distressing, the journey they describe as they drive past bodies by the side of the road, just to try

and reach a place of safety, there are so few people managing to make it out of there, the i have said repeatedly he wants a full civilian evacuation, he wants everybody that is left in mariupol brought out safely because every day that those people remain in numbers without the basics of life, the chance of a humanitarian catastrophe moves closer and closer. authorities in the occupied ukrainian town of enerhodar say russian forces fired tear gas and �*flash bang' stun grenades at demonstrators during a pro—ukraine rally. residents had gathered in the town centre on saturday to voice their support for their country when they were violently dispersed.authorities also said four people had been wounded and were being treated in hospital after russian forces had bombed another part of the town on the same day.

an adviser to president zelensky has said russian forces are making a rapid retreat, north of the capital kyiv. the uk ministry of defence said there was information they had withdrawn from hostomel airport, which has seen fighting since the first day of the conflict. the bbc�*sjeremy bowen has reached the airport you have to watch where you put your feet here in the, well, the ruins of hostomel airport, about ten miles from the centre of kyiv, and on day one of the invasion, this was one of russia's main targets. a great big open area, they could land planes, helicopters, and use it as a staging area for their push into the capital. now of course that didn't happen, ukrainian resistance was too stuff, and you can see there was a massive battle here. there is a huge amount of debris. all round the perimeter there is broken tanks and lots of unexploded ordnance of different kinds. and in the midst of it

all, there is this. this is the wreck that was the maria, the dream. maria in ukrainian, and it's — was the world's biggest cargo aircraft. a huge amount of national pride was wrapped up in this as well, it was a symbol of modernity, of ukraine's place in the world, striking out across the globe. and now, it's a symbol of what's happened to the country. more than ten million people have now fled their homes in ukraine, four million of them are refugees who have left the country and many have found their way to poland. kasia madera is at a volunteer centre in lublin. well, i was at the border

when the war first started and i witnessed thousands of people crossing the border when all of this was unravelling. i wanted to come back to poland to see how people are coping now over a month since the start of this war. and we came specifically to lublin because this is a place where just five hours after the war started, the local ngo groups, the local government here, and a whole army of volunteers just rallied together to create a committee that serves and helps ukrainian refugees. this was a monastery, it was then a cultural centre, it is now the nerve centre at the heart of all of this, where lots and lots of activity happens to support the refugees that are coming into countries like poland. this is a huge operation. within this building, there is a room where people take phone calls, they vet people who are offering accommodation. they also help to house people. they also help to offer id cards

as well because there is an awful lot that happens behind—the—scenes, an awful lot of admin that happens to ensure that all of these people are secure. bear in mind, 40,000 people came here to escape the fighting in ukraine, this isjust one small city in poland. it increased the population in this place by 10%, and we are the schools' population increase by 10%, the children coming into the different schools, all of this costs a lot of money. poland estimates it has already spent over two billion euros in helping the refugees, getting them settled, getting them home. compare that to what the european union is offering, just over three billion, so this country is asking for much, much more. it believes that it will spend at least 20,000, 20 billion euros on helping, on helping support the refugees coming to this country.

a huge, huge effort. bear in mind that so many people have already come here but bear in mind that people are still coming. evenjust this morning when we were here very early in the morning, a young woman had come, she had just spent the night travelling across from over the border here to poland and she had come here to find out what she is meant to do next, she wanted to move on to the czech republic and she just wanted to move on and she was wondering how her next process is. all the time, people are coming, and this country has been really rallying around and doing its absolute best but if you think about the sheer volume of numbers, over four million people, according to the un, have left ukraine, and that number will continue to grow as the volatility, as the fighting continues in ukraine. this place is geared up but of course it all depends on how many more people continue to come. it has been an absolutely fascinating experience coming back to poland to witness how this country is coping. their arms are still open. they still want people to feel safe

here but the ultimate message is, it says it above me, stop the war, because poles have seen the sacrifice that ukrainians have had to endure because of fighting. pope francis has called for a shared response to the world's growing migration emergency. speaking to officials in malta after arriving for a two—day visit, the pope also appeared to criticise the russian president, vladimir putin, saying a "powerful leader" was stirring up conflicts for nationalist interests. a 36—hour curfew is in effect across sri lanka, as the authorities try to deter anti—government protests against worsening shortages of food, fuel and medicines. the capital, colombo, has already spent two nights under curfew following unrest on thursday. the shortages have been caused by the country running out of foreign currency to pay for imported goods. archana shukla sent this

report from colombo. well, the state of emergency imposed in the country and the island nation is 2a hours after there were violent protests outside the sri lankan president's house, and i'm standing at that location right now. these protests that happened on thursday night turned violent with tear gas shells, water cannons, and injuries on both sides of the party, when angry citizens actually clashed with police forces. they wanted to storm inside the house of the president, demanding his ousting from the government. demanding his family to leave the government. over the mismanagement of the economy. the angry citizens are not happy with how the country has been moved into an unprecedented economic crisis. just 2a hours after that violent protest, the president came out

and announced a state level emergency which means that military has sweeping powers. the military can take actions in the name of restoring public order. already we are hearing, you know, inputs from local reporters about some social media activists being arrested if they are putting posts against the government or against the president. at the same time, there are multiple other demonstrations that were planned for today evening and tomorrow, which is april third. already the government has announced a 36 hour nationwide curfew from 6pm today until 4am on monday. and this activists say is a direct, you know, way to quell protests, to quell demonstrations from angry citizens, civil society, ngos as well as even middle class sri lankans who are out on the streets to protest about shortages of food, fuel, medicines, they have to stand

in queues for hours together to get diesel, to get petrol, to get cooking gas and the situation is not and that is why there is outrage. however, in place of working to get out of the economic crisis, the government has come at the moment, decided to quell protests by putting on a nationwide curfew from 6am lipm, 4am on monday morning. will smith has resigned from the academy of motion pictures, arts and sciences — the organisation that hands out the oscars. the actor described slapping the comedian, chris rock, at this year's ceremony as shocking, painful and inexcusable. the academy have accepted his resignation, but are continuing with disciplinary proceedings.peter bowes reports from los angeles. wow! this is the moment will smith will forever regret,

retaliation for a joke by chris rock that he did not like, a violent response that stunned the audience and almost had the actor thrown out of the theatre. now he is accepting the consequences for his conduct, days after the body that puts one the oscars launched disciplinary proceedings, smith says he is leaving the organisation. speculation about how the academy would deal with smith had reached fever pitch in hollywood. it's the biggest controversy in the history of the oscars. resigning from the academy is a big deal, membership of this illustrious invitation—only body is seen as a mark of achievement in itself. the academy was quick to respond.

the fallout from the saga continues to reverberate around the world of entertainment. chris rock, back on the comedy circuit, said he was still processing what happened. will smith will no longer be able to vote for the oscars. but it is not known yet whether he will face further consequences, whether he will be allowed to keep his academy award or whether he will ever be invited back to take part in hollywood's biggest night. earlier, i spoke to jazz tangcay from variety magazine who said he did the right thing to resign.

i think the whole, you know, i think that was the best move that he could take before the academy decide, you know, before the academy decided to maybe expel him. we do not know, we will not know anything further until their board meeting on april 18th. to think potentially they would have pushed him? to think that is why he resigned? i think the whole thing is where the academy is at right now is they have to decide and unpack this and whether it meets the criteria for him to be expelled and, you know, speaking to academy members, speaking to, you know, other sources, everybody is staying quiet until that disciplinary proceeding in, i guess, about two weeks' time. seeing as he has already walked out

of the academy, what kind of disciplinary action could they take if they are continuing their investigation? some people are saying, well, look, he might even have as 0scar removed from him. do you think that is a possibility? i don't think so. if we look back at the history of the academy, five members had been expelled in the past its 94—year history. harvey weinstein, bill cosby, and none of them have had their revoked and returned. as it stands right now, yes, he gets to keep his 0scar, his best actor 0scarfor king richard. yes, he can still get invited to future academy award ceremonies as tradition goes, the following year, the best actor winner gets to present to the best actress. he can also still be considered

for future consideration and he has a film supposedly on slate come out this fall so, again, it is very much still up in the air and we are not going to know until emmanuel macron has been holding his first rally of the french election campaign — just over a week before the first round of voting. he told around 30,000 supporters in paris that he is fighting for �*social progress' and to stop �*extremism' in french politics. with just days before the first vote, polls suggest president macron is leading the race ahead of far—right rival marine le pen. he also promised employment for everyone — here he is — speaking at that rally — a short time ago. translation: working more also means more people working. yes, i am aiming forfull more people working. yes, i am aiming for full employment. because thanks to everything we have done

together over these five years, for the first time since the mid—i9 70s, our country can say that it will reach full employment in the next five years, yes, it is possible. our correspondent hugh schofield is in paris for us. a short time ago — i asked him how important this rally is for mr macron. well, it was an important moment for the president because, as you were saying, it was his only rally ahead of round one in a week's time and it comes at a time when a lot of people are saying his campaign is never really taken off so this was a chance for him to energise the faithful and send out the message that he is campaigning, that he is not completely taken up with the war in ukraine and talking to world leaders and so on. but that is number one priority now is focusing on the consent of the french. there was a lot about his past mandate and the achievements and the way he fulfilled them, commitment he had

made in his first campaign five years ago and then more of the same for the future. a lot about social reforms he was promising and that is interesting because it suggests he was trying to send out a signal to the left or the centre—left people who he wants to very much come on his side if, it seems like the comic turns into a run—off with marine le pen. he is very aware that people on the left might be tempted to think a kind of curse on both your houses, both marine le pen and emmanuel macron. he wants to be clear to left—leaning voters that there is a very big difference between him and marine le pen and if it comes to a run—off with marine le pen, he wants them on his side. what are the poll suggesting? he is strongly ahead but much less strongly ahead that he was two weeks ago. a couple of weeks ago we were all reporting and every pundit saying exactly the same thing that the ukraine war had been a vote

from the blue that had done him a favour because he was able to pose as the protector of the nation and to manoeuvre in the world stage in a way that it is standing a lot of good domestically but what has happened is that in the last couple of weeks he spent too long or been perceived as spending too long in international affairs to the point of neglecting in the eyes of the electorate the campaign and appearing to be rather glibly assuming that he would get through and win a second term. that may well still be the case because he is still the favoured but they have definitely come on his team, had a bit of the jitters in the last few days seeing marine le pen's poll rating coming up and his own coming down and even a couple of them polls suggesting that they are in a very short distance if it comes to a second—round run—off with macro 52, much closer than when the two were together in the run—off five years ago.

bookings have opened for five to ii—year—olds in england to receive a low—dose covid vaccine. experts recommend children receive two of the jabs; which contain just a third of the adult dose. they will be available from hundreds of locations from monday. adam finn is a professor of paediatrics at bristol medical school and member of thejoint committee on vaccination and immunisation. it is very much for people who want to have their children immunised. children are much lower risk than old folks like me and the imperative which is for people to get immunised doesn't get dashed doesn't exist for children. but parents who want to get their children vaccinated are welcome to come forward. these vaccinations have common side—effects, as we all know. there is a strong possible litany of headaches and fever is for a day or two, children might even miss a day

of school as a consequence but they are short lived and serious side effects. the more serious side effects. the more serious side effects are the effects on the heart, they are vanishingly rare, and so that is not something that parents should be too concerned about. drivers heading for cross—channel services at the port of dover are reporting long queues and lengthy delays. p&o ferries are suspended after they sacked most of their staff and the alternative company dfds are running a reduced number of crossings because one of its ships was damaged while docking in strong winds. a0 years ago today, argentinian forces landed on the falkland islands after a long running dispute about sovereignty. it sparked an unexpected war with britain which lasted 7a days. here in the peace of the highlands, war seems a distant memory. but for margaret and don davidson, the events of a0 years ago have never left them.

we thought it was all posturing. we never thought for one minute that it would... it would happen. it was simmering away, but you never expected invasion. but that's exactly what happened. argentina has invaded the falklands. in 1982, the davidsons were running the malvina house hotel in port stanley and bringing up a young family. all three of their children were born in the falklands. the youngest was just six months old when war broke out. explosions, rifle fire. that's how you know they're coming. we knew exactly what we had to do. we had to get the hell out of it... out of the way of it, and we went down to the cellar. you will find that in any warfare, you have seen it in ukraine. so how did they cope with being under argentinean rule? most of them had no idea where they were. they'd just been draughted in. they had no idea it was so cold.

they had no idea that we didn't speak spanish. in fact, they had no idea. i think a lot of the conscripts that had arrived and that expected to be welcomed with open arms. and today's events in ukraine bring memories flooding back of how they coped in a warzone a0 years ago. i remember very, very vividly, it was the day after the invasion, i was... i was taking a shower and, um, ijust realised it was gone. your freedom. and that's why ukraine... ..deeply upsets me because you lose... you lose the freedom of speech, you lose the freedom of worship. you lose the freedom from want and you lose the freedom from fear go. all gone.

this is bbc news, bye—bye. it is going to be a cold and frosty night tonight and it felt quite chilly out there today, even though we had lighter winds and some sunshine, temperatures were only typically eight or 9 degrees which is below par for this time of the year and once the showers came along, those temperatures dropped quickly. still some wintry nice in the showers, but nowhere near as snowy, because each day gets a little less cold and those showers are fading overnight tonight, skies will clear in many parts of the country and with light winds, temperatures will fall sharply, there will be a widespread frost tonight. quite a sharp frost in places getting as low as —7 and some of the frost hollows. high pressure keeping it fine and dry overnight and at the winds are not coming in from the north sea and for the east coast of england it

will be a little less code and a weather front will bring cloud and rain from the north west and we start sunny and cold and frosty and cloud will increase on sunday as the wind picks up in scotland and northern ireland, we push rain down from the north in the afternoon. cloud will bubble up in england and wales, some sunshine, a few showers around, not as many as we saw today and those temperatures to creep up slowly to ten or 11 degrees. could be a bit warmer than that on monday, this weather front is taking rain south across the uk overnight and then following on from that, we have this chunk of warmer air, it is what we call a warm sector, a lot of cloud but higher temperatures, we should start frost free on monday but it looks cloudy, rain and drizzle at times and a stronger wind. away from the far north of scotland, warmer air we have across the uk and temperatures reaching ia or 15 celsius. a weather front is going to be pushing down overnight and it will move down, not much rain on that, but to the north of it, we have colder conditions

to start on tuesday. along the weather front, we have this cloud and outbreaks of rain, most of the rain affecting northern ireland, pushing over the irish sea into the west of england and south west scotland. north of that, the colder air and cold enough for wintry showers in the northern isles, miles are in england and wales, temperatures around 15 degrees. very unsettled through the week ahead, wet and windy weather at times and just cold enough in the country to bring the rest of the more so. goodbye.

this is bbc news. hundreds of people have escaped mariupol and the red cross evacuation efforts have been frustrated. they are spending the night en route and will resume their journey tomorrow. a nationwide curfew is in place in sri lanka to try and head of plant anti—government protests over the country's economic decline. the capital colombo has already spent two nights under curfew following unrest on thursday. hollywood actor will smith has resigned from the oscars academy after slapping comedian chris rock on stage during the ceremony last sunday. the academy says it accepts his resignation and will continue with their own disciplinary procedures.

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