Has had to say about that. Hong kongs Pro Democracy Movement delivered a landslide victory in local elections this weekend. Across hong kong, turnout was over 70 thats a record. Nearly three Million People voted, and they voted overwhelmingly for pro democracy candidates. Just have a look at this. This is the electoral map. The yellow shows us the electoral map. The yellow shows us the progress made by pro democracy politicians. They took 17 out of the 18 districts. Compare that to 2015, when all 18 were controlled by pro beijing groups. Weve also seen some of the territorys best known politicians defeated by young inexperienced pro democracy candidates. And of course, the context for all of this is that pro democracy anti beijing protests have been going on for over five months. And these results represent yet another blow to the authority of hong kongs chief executive carrie lam. Shes said. And while shes reflecting, the protests go on. Jonathon head is there. Today, Office Workers in the city centre used their lunch break to heckle a prominent pro government politician, who had to be hustled out by riot police. And then turned that into an impromptu protest, chanting the mantra of the movement which has thrown down an unprecedented challenge to chinese rule in this territory. Five demands, not one less. They still want full democracy and an independent enquiry into the violence of the past five months. The Hong Kong Government must have been hoping that after this election, perhaps the protests might die down. But the stunning opposition victory seems to have given the movement and its supporters new momentum. We know that beijing sees the restoration of law and order as the priority in hong kong. This is the view of one chinese official who was an interpreter for chinas former leader deng xiaoping. The task for hong kong is to promote greater democracy Going Forward by sticking with rule of law, not by damaging or destroying rule of law traditions in hong kong. Thats why its of paramount importance to put a stop to violence and chaos in hong kong, and lets Work Together to promote and create a democracy in hong kong. Thats the only right way for the future of hong kong promoting democracy by sticking to rule of law. To find out about the impact of these local elections in hong kong, ive been speaking to the bbcs laura westbrook. It is interesting to see local elections capture such worldwide attention, but i think when you look attention, but i think when you look at these elections, when you look at the record voter turnout, when you look at in all of these districts, these pro democracy candidates overwhelmingly defeating these various established pro beijing politicians. Youre seeing as they we re politicians. Youre seeing as they were still support behind the demands of the protesters and now there is a legitimate political mandate behind those demands. And thatis mandate behind those demands. And that is something that hong kongs leader can no longer ignore. Up until this point, the government had been saying there is this silent majority in hong kong and how it is very much more difficult to say that. And to what degree are the politicians have done very lacrosse that weekend connected to, say, the stu d e nts we that weekend connected to, say, the students we saw during that standoff campus last week . It will be interesting to see how these district councillors will work in the wider opposition camp in hong kong. Local district councillors, they dont really have a lot of political power. They deal with parking metres and bus routes and that kind of thing. But what they do is they make up a committee that lx hong kongs leader. They would have more of a say in that election, but i think looking at is more broadly, one of the key demands of the protesters is that they want direct election of leaders and that this 110w election of leaders and that this now gives weight to that key demand. And kerry lam says she is going to reflect. As she is reflecting combo will be in front of her . Up until now, the government has relied on the police to control these protests. Now i think the pressure is on her to come up with a different solution and change tactics. And the pressure is on for her to do that. She said she is going to listen to the protesters. We will have to wait and see because if she does not come up with a different tactic, she risks inflaming these protesters who now are kind of rejuvenated in their reinvigoration any protest movement. Hong kongs protesters say china is meddling with the freedoms they were promised when britain handed control of the territory to beijing in 1997, something china denies. To put hong kong in the context of mainland china, it is really very small. It has a population of roughly 7. 5 Million People. The nearest mainland city, shenzhen, just here on the border, has a population of roughly 12. 5 Million People. China as a whole has a population in excess of 1. 3 billion. And Chinese Media has been critical of hong kongs district elections. This is the front page of the global times, which says western interference in hong kong reaches a new low. This is a pro beijing newspaper in hong kong called wen wei po. It says there was chaos at polling stations and suggests that some people voting were underage or not allowed to vote. Lets bring in zhaoyin feng from pvc chinese, who is with us in washington. Good to speak to you. Pbc chinese. Explain more about how this is being a splinter chinese people. The Chinese Media did report on the elections but conveniently left out details they did not report on the pro democracy camp winning 60 of the vote, 90 of the seats, but the state media sagacity vote was rigged. They said voters were trying to disturb the order and voting stations, and they also point fingers at western forces at interfering in the elections. This includes a bbc interview with a former uk consulate staff and also australian medias part about the defective chinese spy. In the past month but we have seen Chinese Media report about the so called its how the majority in hong kong who would turn out on the election they devote down the protest. The Election Results show the absolute opposite and at the moment, it seems like state media still is coming with a new strategy to report on this. They have been quiet at the same time, brief and low key about it. Have been quiet at the same time, brief and lowkey about it. And we we re brief and lowkey about it. And we were talking to laura about options facing carrie lam. What are the options facing authorities in beijing about how they can play this crisis coachella so far, we have so so far, we have no official statement from beijing. Beijing is shook by the Election Results. Before the election, beijing has expressed absolute confidence in the hong kong leader carrie lam. Now, beijing might have new thoughts about it. And if the beijing and Hong Kong Government were to have meaningful responses to this very telling election result, for example to push forward reforms on the universal suffrage and also set up independent inquiries into the Police Actions during the protests, we might hopefully see a peaceful ending of the protests. But if beijing were to take the other way might you take the hardline approaches, and to ignore this election result, we might see a very dangerous trajectory. And if we see the same mindset within the radical protesters, violence might u nfortu nately return protesters, violence might unfortunately return to hong kong. Zhaoyin, thank you very much indeed. There is further coverage as well, if you have the relevant linguist get linguist skills, on pbc chinese. Michael bloomberg has officially launched his campaign to be president of the United States. He says hes a new choice for democrats. This was him about an hour ago. Iam running i am running for president to defeat donald trump, and to rebuild america. Michael bloomberg has political pedigree he was mayor of new york. But theres one reason beyond all others why people are taking him seriously its money. Forbes ranks him as the eighth richest person in the world. It estimates hes worth 54 billion. And hes spending a little of that on an advertising blitz over the next week. Hes already reserved 34 million worth of airtime for television commercials. Thats the most ever spent in a week by a president ial candidate. Heres a clip from one of the ads. Mike bloomberg started as a middle class kid who had to work his way through college and build a business from a single room to a global entity, creating tens of thousands of good paying jobs along the way. You can see already, that narrative ofa you can see already, that narrative of a self made man, already beginning to come through in those ads. Money buys ads but it also gives your rivals attack lines. I was going to show you a tweet there, from Bernie Sanders. It says, we dont believe billionaires have the right to buy elections. That is why multimillionaires like Michael Bloomberg are not going to be getting very far in this election. Though, of course, a billionaire lives in the white house at the moment. That can work for you in politics. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, another democratic frontrunner, has shared similar sentiments. The only way democrats can get a nominee is to go to the billionaires and Corporate Executives . But you could argue. Both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are proposing wealth taxes. Michael bloomberg is exactly the type of person they would be targeting. Earlier this year, Mike Bloomberg expressed skepticism about a wealth tax though did promise tax rises on wealthier peoples income. Here he is defending his political spending. For years, ive been using my resources of the things that matter to me. I was lucky enough to build a successful company. It has been very successful company. It has been very successful and i have used all of it to impact to help america. I am committed to fight for gun safety, i am committed to fight for stopping Climate Change, which is a disaster for us. Michael bloomberg is positioning himself as a pragmatic centrist. And that means hell be competing for votes with another 77 year old would be president joe biden. Mr biden also has a centrist agenda and has consistently topped polls of the Democratic Candidates. Nada tawfik has been following Mike Bloombergs campaign launch. Its really interesting, because his Campaign Manager was basically sing at the moment, it looks like its in evitable that trump will win come 2020 if something is not changed right now. And they think that the current line up of Democratic Candidates are just not up to the job. Clearly what he is trained to pitch here is something that we heard from joe biden, the select ability argument that he is the one who could take on donald trump. And as we are there in his pitch, he things it is notjust his business resume and his time leading the nations largest city but also the fa ct nations largest city but also the fact that he has been such a philanthropist, using his wealth to give back to various causes, whether begun control, really trying to take on the nra by pouring a lot of money into a gun control initiative, even really upfront on Climate Change as one of the uns envoys on that issue and then again, you know, just really trying to court innate money into democratic races pour money into. Has helped in places like virginia, where he was speaking today. As you saw in one of the ads i was playing, Michael Bloomberg created his own business, bloomberg news. Its editor in chief has put out a memo, saying this there you have, a really significant journalistic player in the us opting out of investigating any of the candidates on one side of the political spectrum. The washington postjournalist Margaret Sullivan has criticised that move. They had lain in her latest column. Heres nada tawfik again. Its really interesting because these are many people putting out these are many people putting out the situation you get in when you have wealthy people owning news outlets like this. If you look back to when mayor Michael Bloomberg was leading new york, bloomberg had to have a similar kind of discussion about how they handled his mayor reality and covering it, and they had some of the assigned to city hall looking at his initiatives but really did not investigate him given he is the owner of the site. If we look forward, running a president ial campaign is very different. It affects much more thanjust campaign is very different. It affects much more than just the issues here in the city do, so many are kind of wondering how the paper is going to be effectively able to cover this campaign. And also be able to do stories on President Trump without looking like they are really going after trump and ignoring the democratic side of things. So really does put them in a tough situation. Just a quick question about the polling. Do we have any idea what voters make of the prospective Michael Bloomberg . At the moment, he is very low, around 1 nationally. Even though he does not have name or condition around the nation yet, and that is why youre seeing him commode videos introducing himself, he does have a long record people able to go back and look at. Seeing him introducing himself. Many people looking at his policies here as mayor, whether it be a stop and frisk policy many people saw as racist, stopping black and latino men, and basically a federal court board had been constitutional. Michael bloomberg, until he was about to announce, never really apologise for that policy. And people pointed out he was not in favour of paid sick leave, minimum wage, and all of us is going to come up. Thanks to nada tawfik. Thanks to nada tawfik. Stay with us on outside source. Still to come this is security footage of theives smashing their way in to a museum in germany. They made off with priceless jewels. Well have the latest. More than a Million Students are facing eight days of disruption after University Lecturers and support staff began strike over pay, pensions and working conditions. Unions say around 40,000 people walked out today. Universities say theyll do everything they can to minimise the impact. Lisa hampele was at one of the affected universities goldsmiths in south london. Thats one of 60 universities. About half of the universities are on strike. They are part of the union that has been in dispute for some time. Last year, there was a dispute over pensions. They have a Superannuation Pension and the employers wanted to change that, but they partially won that dispute and theyve maintained that pension. But theyve been asked to put in bigger contributions and are very unhappy about that. But the employers say theyre putting in an extra £250 million a year and that theyjust cant afford any more. This is 0utside source live from the bbc newsroom. 0ur lead story pro democracy candidates in hong kongs local elections have made unprecedented gain. Its being seen as a rebuke to the territorys pro beijing leadership. Lets ta ke lets take a look at some of the main stories from bbc world service. In argentina, two Roman Catholic priests have been sentenced to more than 40 years in prison for sexually abusing deaf children at a church school. The priests, along with a gardener, were found guilty of rape and abuse over 12 years up to 2013. The crimes shocked argentina, with many accusing the church of acting too slowly. Israel has deported an employee of human rights watch, accusing him of supporting a boycott of the country. 0mar shakir is the first human rights representative to be deported under a new israeli law. Human rights watch rejects the accusation and says israel is trying to suppress criticism of its policies towards the palestinians. Bbc arabic. Rescue teams have been working off the coast of romania to save more than 14,000 sheep trapped in a sinking cargo ship. All of the crew were rescued lets hope the same can soon be be said of the sheep. These pictures on bbc. Com. Lets learn about the biggest heist in modern german history. Its happened at the green vault which is one of the oldest museums in europe. This is what the museum looks. There were three unique collections of 18th century jewels not any more. Each collection contains about 40 pieces, including jewellery worn by european royalty. The museum is in dresden. This more detailed map highlights the votes in which the jewels were kept. We have also highlighted an electricity junction kept. We have also highlighted an electricityjunction box where firefighters were called at 5am in the morning. There is speculation that the fire disabled the museums alarm system and put out some of the street lights. This is the statement we have from the local police. Translation the culprits evidently got in through a window. They cut through the bars and then smashed the glass before they went straight to one glass cabinet, which they destroyed. They then left the building and disappeared. As youd imagine, the museum is closed while the investigation continues. In the last half an hour, weve received this cctv footage showing two suspects mnoving around inside the museum in the dark. Police say they are examining the footage closely and they say its likely more than two people were involved in the robbery. The collection at the green vault has been acquired over many centuries its of huge importance to saxonys history. Heres germanys interior minister. Translation its notjust about the material value but also the sentimental value, which is priceless for the state of saxony. As our state premier has sent him overnight, the whole saxony was stolen from thi