Transcripts For BBCNEWS Outside Source 20200817

Welcome. The president of belarus has discussed holding fresh elections eventually as pressure mounts on the countrys leadership. These are some pictures of protests from minsk earlier today. The protests began more than a week ago, over claims the election had been rigged, and have gathered pace despite mass arrests. President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled the country since 1994, and according to the official result won the president ial election with 80 of the vote. Until now hes held firm on the poll, even earlier today telling factory workers. But he was jeered and heckled, here what happened. Heres the bbcs Abdujalil Abdurasulov from minsk. Here is a survey is for it and moscow. I think the scenes a very public innovation is difficult for any politician to survive. Sarah ra i nsfo rd. Any politician to survive. Sarah rainsford. Belarus is an authoritarian estate so it is not normal in the sense of perhaps Mr Lukashenko can find a way to cling on. And as those jeers and heckling came from the cloud, he responded and came back at the crowd. Came from the crowd. It was a fascinating psychological study from a man who has never encountered this before in his 26 years in the presidency but with every passing day, the number of groups, companies can make different sectors of society who are now coming out and openly voicing their criticism of Alexander Lukashenko, their calls for him to go and their support for new elections, that crowd and momentum is building all the time and it is very difficult to see that tide turning now. Workers at state run factories walked off the job last week, and the strikes have continued. This is what was broadcast on a state tv Breakfast Show after several presenters and staff resigned last week. As you can see the sofas are empty and there is music playing in the background. Heres what one cooking show presenter said about resigning shes already had to flee to ukraine. Translation they tried to frighten people but people got angry instead. And now its impossible to stop things. No one will everforget its impossible to stop things. No one will ever forget what they did. Its a point of no return. They will never forget this. The main opposition candidate in the election, svetla na ti kha novs kaya, who also fled the country last week, released this video today. Translation im prepared to take responsibility and ask as the nations leader during this period so the country can settle down and get back to normality so that we can release all Political Prisoners and prepare a Legal Framework and conditions to hold a new round of president ial elections quickly. To act. Genuine, fair, and Transparent Elections that will be accepted without question by the international community. Its not yet clear what will happen next. Mr lukashenka says there will have to be a referendum on constitutional changes before there could be a new president ial poll. Heres how one protester reacted to the news. Actually. I dont believe it. He has previously said many times he wont let go of his power. And i think this isjust, i dont know, like a diversion tactic to gain time because this is going to be like more, he will have more time organising the referendums so maybe more people will be arrested, detained, beaten up and maybe more people will decide to stay inside and not to go out and protest. Eu leaders will be holding an emergency video summit on wednesday, after ministers agreed to place more sanctions on belarus last week. Heres the chairman of the polish Parliamentary Foreign Affairs committee. The problem, the real problem right now is that Mr Lukashenko is ready to discuss the future of his country with mr putin. And he has done it twice in the last two days but as long as we dont see any sign of willingness to find a Common Ground with protesters, in part with the emerging of Civil Society in belarus, we have every reason to be pessimistic. So what is not yet clear is how how russia will react to the events in belarus and remember russia has previously intervened militarily in the region. The russian president Vladimir Putin and Mr Lukashenko spoke over the phone on sunday and heres the Statement Issued by the kremlin. It says. Heres the james nixey, the director of chatham houses russia eurasia and europe programmes. The least likely option here is that russia will do nothing. Slightly less likely but still a possibility is that russia will intervene with muscularity militarily as it did in ukraine and in georgia in 2008 and 2014. I think more likely is that although lukashenko as you inferred is not a particularly popular person in the kremlin, he is nonetheless still an ally, he is anti west and that counts a lot for Vladimir Putin. So it is most likely that russia will try to intervene in these more underhand ways, so called hybrid warfare whereby they try to undermine the opposition or maybe they try to get their way with the new people in power in fact. With me now is yuri vendik from bbc russian. Good to have you on, what you make of what is going on. What will moscow be thinking . Of what is going on. What will moscow be thinking . |i of what is going on. What will moscow be thinking . I hear all sorts of various comments and forecasts as to what russia might do and one of them you just heard. Some people they do argue, some hope and fear that russia might help lukashenko to stay in power even by physical intervening with the belarussians by helping with police or military force. But many people argue that that would be extremely unwise of pollutant to intervene physically for many reasons. One of them is whoever succeeds lukashenko, for many reasons. One of them is whoever succeeds lu kashenko, that person by no means will be anti russian or pro european for that matter because none of the candidates, none of the leading politicians of the opposition if there is any organised opposition have made any anti russian state m e nts have made any anti russian statements or gestures because the two countries in the two people are as close as it gets and as i say whoever they say succeeds lukashenko will be pro and this depends on the. The russian economy depends on. Many special members of the russian opposition and fear that evenit russian opposition and fear that even it would be unwise that putin in principle doesnt want any other new kind of revolutions on his borders. Thats what he will be rather he can. He will not really try to intervene with publishing affairs. Very quickly, this is different to ukraine for example. A lot of people will be watching and say this sounds like a similar situation to ukraine but it is different, isnt it . It is different. Different first of all because belarus and russia closer and the people even closer than russia and ukraine because in ukraine their western parts of the country which are not mentally or culturally close russia. The big difference is of course that ukraine used to be a democratic country even before russia is not frankly speaking and theres no organised opposition of any big chance of the population who used to be in a position to the authorities in opposition to the fort director authorities. In opposition to the authorities. Thousands of students in the uk will be given their predicted grades for a level after a very embarassing u turn by the British Government today. The decision overturns last weeks results which were calculated by an algorithm, after final exams had to be cancelled during the coronavirus pandemic. Heres the education secretary. Of course incredibly sorry for all those students who have been through this. When we came up with the system which was broadly supported across the spectrum of calculated grades, what we were doing was to ensure that we have the fairest possible system making sure that we look after the interests of all students. But when it became apparent that there were unfairness is within the system, it was the right thing to act. This is a huge u turn for the government and for the education secretary. Just on saturday he gave an interview to the times criticising scotlands government for using teacher assessments and saying that in england there would be. Well, it clearly wasnt. The Opposition Labour Party had this to say. This shouldve been thought through from the start. This problem has been there for months and the government has not sorted it out. It came to the wrong decision last week, refuse to change his mind until today and now theres a huge motive unraveling that must be done. But do not underestimate the stress and anger at this has caused thousands of young people who have seen their futures all over the place over the last few days. The algorithm used by the government sought to standardise the predictions schools had made for their pupils. Many students had their university places withdrawn after the system gave them a lower result than expected. Todays decision has met with a variety of responses from the teenagers affected. So happy for my future, my peers and my college, everybody else affected. Everybody else has been heard finally. Unfortunately, i cannot go to queen mary because the course is full and i had no chance after being given a grade d in chemistry. If we get given our teachers assessment grades, i think this will give more assurance to many students in this position. But personally for me, it is still a bit of a roller coaster. Branwenjefferies has this report. Our education editor branwen jefferies says students and universities are in for a bumpy few weeks as they try to figure out a way through all the turmoil. Around 70 of students following the results they got last week have been accepted onto the first choice places. But of course that leaves 30 who have not. So what should they do . Well, they are being advised to speak to their teachers, their parents, to consider their options. Do they accept a second choice that they have already made . Do they try to go back to their first choice to fight for a place . In england, the numbers in university had been limited by the government to only a 5 increase this year. Today, Gavin Williamson has lifted that cap on numbers. In theory allowing universities to take many more students, but of course there are other considerations. We are going into a University Term where universities will have to be covid secure. They are thinking very carefully about how many they can fit into seminar rooms or lecture theatres. Many lectures, of course, have moved online. But one thing that has not is Student Accommodation and there again they have limits on the numbers they are putting into their accommodation. Often a key part of the experience of going away from home for the first time is being alongside other first year students. It is not clear how they are going to manage those difficulties. The change of policy at westminster came after ministers found themselves under increasing pressure from fellow politicians and the public. The decision makes england the last part of the United Kingdom to rethink the way grades are decided. The Welsh Government announced this afternoon that both a level and gcse students will now be awarded the grades predicted by their teachers. Northern ireland earlier confirmed this would apply to all gcse results on thursday and scotland announced their decision last week that exam results would be based on teacher assessments and not the ill fated algorithm. Nick eardley is in westminster. So whatever way you look at it this has been a mess. That is a fair analysis. There have been a number of things that have happened over the last few months as a result of the last few months as a result of the pandemic that have been hard for the pandemic that have been hard for the government frankly, they werent expected and they had to act quickly to try to resolve. This isnt one of them because we have known since march the exams werent going to happen and that the government would have to come up with a new system to replace it. Now the argument that the education secretary Gavin Williamson is making today is that it was only the weekend at the extent of the problems became clear. He got external advisers and spoke to off quality and they realise that there were too many anomalies, too many kids who werent getting the results they deserve. However, this has been warned about for months. There have been tory mps who have been warning for several months now that there could be a problem. There was the example in scotland last week where we saw the government forced into a traumatic u turn after criticism from teachers, parents and from pupils and it did take Gavin Williamson the best part of a week to decide that this was going to be the course of action. In that time, there are again many parents, teachers, and peoples that have been because a great deal of distress. There are many aven pes who are not happy with mr winson and are questioning how much longer he can stay in hisjob. At least tonight i think we may have clarity for those young people hoping to go to university. Clarity for those young people but not clarity throughout the system. This is not over because universities now have to try and wade throughjust universities now have to try and wade through just how much universities now have to try and wade throughjust how much how they respond to all of this . There are huge questions about what happens to those kids who made different decisions based on the grades they were given last week many of which will be upgrade quite significantly which could be the difference between not getting into the university you wanted and now being able to get into that university. So will those places still be there for them . How easy will it be to try to sort at the logistics of this . Its a mess as you said at the start. Its not been a smooth process, its not been particularly well handled by the government and i suspect there are many parents who although they are relieved and pupils who are relieved tonight that they finally got some a nswe is tonight that they finally got some answers and there is finally some closure on this will be incredibly unimpressed that it didnt happen this time last week. Thanks for that, nick. Lets take you to the us now. Tonight will be the first night of the Us Democratic National Convention kicking off four days of speeches, receptions and rallies leading up to the main moment announcing the president ial nominee, joe biden. Of course this year, things are going to look a bit officially, its being held in a Convention Centre in milwaukee but concerns over covid i9 mean only people orchestrating the event will be there. Instead it will be aired on news channels and streamed on social media. Not even the Presumptive Democratic Candidatejoe Biden will be there. He will be dialling in from his home state of delaware, and he will deliver his speech from the chase center in wilmington. As well as former president s and other dignatories, the line up of speakers includes educators, gun safety advocates, healthcare workers and even some former republicans. Our reporter nada tawfik has more. Tens of thousands of people should have been descending on milwaukee to mark the start of the democrats general election campaign. Instead, the party will be holding an Unconventional Convention because of Health Concerns surrounding the pandemic. This is what it should look like. But the normallyjam packed arenas will be replaced by two hours