hello, you're watching bbc news. i'm adnan nawaz. our top story this hour: the son—in—law also rises — donald trump names jared kushner, his son—in—law, as a senior white house adviser. democrats immediately called for a review. hello and welcome. as barack obama prepares to say farewell, we have a look at what he did for the world ‘s biggest economy. and china's raw materials

are going up faster than it has for the past five years. it could mean the past five years. it could mean the rest of the world will be paying more for the stuff they sell. donald trump has named his son—in—law as a senior white house adviser. democrats have immediately called for a review ofjared kushner‘s appointment to the president—elect‘s team, citing nepotism laws and potential conflicts of interest, but members of mr trump's team are confident of the job given to the 36—year—old businessman. bill hayton reports. never centrestage but rarely far away, jared kushner was a key figure behind donald trump's election campaign and, since november, behind the transition team. while he's been strategizing in trump tower, lawyers have been working out how a relative of the president, with huge business interests, can work in the white house. mr kushner is expected to step down from his multi—billion dollar property company and put other legal safeguards in place.

he has been part of the trump family since marrying the president—elect‘s daughter, ivanka, seven years ago. a 50—year—old law bans federal officials from hiring relatives to work in state agencies but trump's team says the rule doesn't apply to the white house — that's likely to be contested. ivanka trump will be working in this white house. she won't take an official role, instead she'll focus on looking after the couple's three children, at their new washington home. mr kushner is part of a growing group of trump advisers. reince priebus, the outgoing chair of the republican party's national committee, will be chief of staff. steve bannon, once head of the right—wing news site, breitbart, will be chief strategist. trump's spokeswoman, kellyanne conway, will be white house counsellor. and now mr kushner has the vague title of senior white house adviser, working on trade in the middle east.

some observers believe mr trump is playing divide and rule, forcing his inner circle to compete for attention. like so many things about the incoming administration, exactly how it will work remains a mystery. bill hayton, bbc news the outgoing obama administration has blacklisted five prominent russians, just 11 days before mr obama leaves office. among them are chief federal investigator, alexander bastrykin, and two men wanted in the uk for the murder of russian dissident alexander litvinenko. the sanctions come at a time of worsening ties, including claims russia rana cyber campaign to influence the us election. the british foreign secretary, borisjohnson, has expressed confidence that the uk will be in the front seat when it comes to negotiating any new trade deal with the united states under the trump administration. mrjohnson made the comments after meeting senior republicans in washington. during the brexit campaign, president obama warned that britain would be at the back of the queue

for american trade deals if it left the european union. more than 30 people are now known to have died in recent days across europe as a cold snap from the arctic circle continues to take hold across central and eastern parts of the continent. temperatures dropped to as little as minus 30 degree celsius. and charities are concerned for refugees crossing the continent on foot or living in informal settlements. greg dawson reports. a view worthy of a postcard but even injanuary, a view worthy of a postcard but even in january, this is a view worthy of a postcard but even injanuary, this is not a sight to expect on the greek island of crete. it cannot get through, shout this driver attempting to drive through the roads. the pavement of these high street is filled with snow up to two metres high. this may be a

common sight but rarely in these conditions. the cameras are also out in istanbul where the snows are expected to stick around until wednesday. i do not remember seeing the snow like this eberflus the public presentation is broken and most of the roads shut down. thousands of passengers have faced delays and cancellations and ferries have been unable to run on the bosphorus river. but as those making journeys on foot face tough conditions. in belgrade, more than 2000 refugees are dealing with temperatures as low as —20 celsius. a makeshift fire, an abandoned warehouse, and a pair of slippers, the only defence for someone. further north, some of the coldest temperatures have been felt in the czech republic where it has dropped

as low as minus 30. at least six people are known to have died from exposure and more snow is promise on the coming days. to explain what's caused this icy blast, and for a look at the forecast, here's our weather presenter matt taylor. the current freeze stretches back to december. a pool of cold air developing across northern russia. last week, high—pressure developed to the west of europe, low pressure to the east, and we tapped into that reservoir of cold air and it worked its way all the way southwards towards the mediterranean. now, over the next few days, that pool of cold air is just trapped. we have lost that northerly flow. it slowly starts to ease out a little bit so if you look at the temperatures, still on tuesday, we see the blues daytime temperatures widely below freezing but not as cold as it has been. as we go through the next few days, certainly into wednesday, across athens, back up to double figures. by thursday, northern parts — germany, poland and the baltic states — should temperatures creep above freezing once agsain but we are not quite yet done with the snow because areas of low pressure spinning across turkey, romania, bulgaria on tuesday

will bring more snow and strong winds. another bout of snow across greece and bulgaria for wednesday. and as things turn a little bit milder, we could see a bit of snow for a time across the north too. the funeral is taking place for iran's former president, akbar hashemi rafsanjani who died on sunday at the age of 82. mr rafsanjani left the presidency twenty years ago but remained influential as one of the leading moderate voices in iranian politics. mohsen asgari, a bbc reporter, joins us on the line from tehran. how many people are we expected and he will be the most high profile? actually, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered. the funeral is going to be started in a few minutes and the supreme leader ayatollah ali

khamenei ali khamenei will lead the ceremony full of akbar hashemi rafsanjani's ceremony full of akbar hashemi rafsa njani's death has ceremony full of akbar hashemi rafsanjani's death has created fractions. this is called a megaevent. it is meant to be starting in a few minutes. has his death become a political event as well? we talk about his influence on the moderates. inaudible those groups and people are under more pressure. akbar hashemi rafsanjani played a significant role, in 1979,

he played a key role and a leader of the economic recovery. although he has many critics, inaudible he said he was a reliable source of support for all those who worked for ayatolla h for all those who worked for ayatollah ali khamenei ali khamenei himself. we will keep across the funeral of the former president of iran, akbar hashemi rafsanjani as it happens in thai run. —— tehran. in other news: a two—day strike by some of british airway‘s cabin staff begins at london's heathrow airport today. the strike by nearly 3,000 members of the unite trade union, is in pursuit of higher pay. up to 50 flights are expected to be cancelled of the two days of action. the airline says passengers

affected will be rebooked a statement to mps later on the political crisis at the stormont assembly. on monday martin mcguinness of sinn fein resigned as deputy first minister, forcing the first minister, arlene foster of the dup, out of her post and raising the prospect of early elections. scientists have found that a drug used to treat alzheimer's disease encourages teeth to re—grow as well as repairing cavities. researchers at king's college london found that the drug tideglusib stimulates the formation of dentine, the material found under tooth enamel. it's thought the discovery might reduce the need for fillings in the future. and aaron is here with all the business news. the us under barack obama, the economy has done quite well? he inherited a poisoned chalice, really. like many economies around

the world, the us economy was in dire straits. a tough position to ta ke dire straits. a tough position to take on and many will say it has done relatively well. someone has treated me that it was not friday, only tuesday! i going home. there are just a couple of weeks of barack 0bama's presidency remaining and later today he gives his big farewell speech. as well as being commander in chief he's also overseen the world's biggest economy for the last 8 years. but what kind of legacy has he left? well since his inauguration injanuary 2009 more than 11 million morejobs have been added with the unemployment rate falling from 7.8% to 4.7%. it peaked at 10.0% in 0bama's first year in power. the typical american family brings home nearly $54,000 a year, almost exactly the same as 20 years ago — once you adjust for inflation. wage growth has been very low under 0bama,

and has been called the "missing piece" of the recovery. and the economy has grown about 1.5% a year over the course of his presidency. it compares to about 2% under his predecessor george w bush. one of the costs of that has been that us government debt has nearly doubled from $10 trillion to $20 trillion during 0bama's eight years in the oval office. we will speak to an expert coming up in world business report. let's turn to china because we've had the latest numbers which tell us how the world's second biggest economy is doing. inflation that consumers are seeing at the shops fell to 2.1%. but that might have more of an impact on the rest of us is that factories are paying more for the raw materials they make into the stuff that china then sells

to the rest of the world. in december the producer price index jumped 5.5% from a year earlier. it sounds boring at it is not boring. if they pass those costs on to the people buying the clothes, electronics or other household goods they make it could lead to more inflation in the rest of the world. we will explain more on that in about 20 minutes time. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter — i'm @bbcaaron stay with us on bbc news, still to come: how to toss away your christmas tree and have fun in the process. the japanese people are in mourning, following the death of emperor hirohito.

thousands converged on the imperial palace to pay their respects when it was announced he was dead. good grief. after half a century of delighting fans around the world, charlie brown and the rest of the gang are calling it quits. the singer paul simon starts his tour of south africa tomorrow, in spite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. teams were trying to scoop up lumps of oil as france recognises it faces an ecological crisis. three weeks ago, the authorities confidently assured these areas that oil from the broken tanker erika would head out to sea. it didn't. the world's tallest skyscraper opens today. the burj dubai has easily overtaken its nearest rivals. this is bbc world news.

i'm adnan nawaz. the latest headlines: jared kushner is to be appointed as a senior adviser to incoming president trump when his father—in—law enters the white house. in the iranian capital tehran, a funeral ceremony begins for one of the country's most powerful clerics, akbar hashemi rafsanjani. president obama has made countless decisions during his presidency — and some he's come to think twice about. so which ones make that list? the bbc‘s david botti takes us through a few of his presidential regrets. eight years in office and lots of decisions. does president obama have any regrets? well, we couldn't ask him directly that he has spoken about regret in the past. here are a few of them. libya, last year, a fox news host asked him a simple question. worst mistake? probably

failing to plan for the day after what i think was the right thing to do intervening in libya. obama told the magazine he misjudged two things. first, how much tribal divisions would play a role in post gaddafi libya and secondly, how little he could rely on france and the uk to help rebuild the country. 0f the uk to help rebuild the country. of course, those governments didn't see it that way. guns. a lot of mass shootings happened on his watch was not here he is in 2015 talking to bbc. the one area i feel that i have been most frustrated and most stifled, we do not have sufficient commonsense gun safety laws. even in the face of repeated mass killings. partisanship. here is the president a year ago giving his last union speech. is one of the few regrets of my presidency that the rank between the two parties has gotten worst incident better. i have no doubt

that lincoln or roosevelt might have been abridged the divide. funnily enough, on this issue, 0bama co m pa res enough, on this issue, 0bama compares himself to his predecessors. he later told vanity fair that he maybe could have gotten more done if he had the genius of abraham lincoln, the charm of fdr, the energy of teddy roosevelt or the legislative acumen of lbj. guantanamo. he campaigned on a promise to close the prison. of course, it is still open and president—elect trump wants to keep it that way. and we are going to load it up with some bad dudes. believe me, we are going to load it up. when a student in ohio asked him what he would have done differently? i wanted to" and a mate on the first day. i didn't because we had a bite partisan agreement. —— bipartisan. ——i wanted to close it on the first day. finally, syria. he said it haunt him. he told vanity fair he

doesn't regret how he handled it that he does say... no doubt president obama will reflect on his decisions for the rest of his life, so will we and so will history. the brazilian government has told the bbc that it intends to build dozens of huge hydro—electric dams across the amazon region. it says the controversial programme will boost the economy, harness the country's natural resources and provide clean energy. but environmental campaigners say the plan is a disaster for the amazon region and will lead to more deforestation and global warming. 0ur brazil correspondent wyre davies has visited the first of the mega—dams, called belo monte, and has spent time with indigenous communities whose lands and villages are threatened by the dam building programme. from the heart of the planet's greatest rainforest emerges one

of the world's biggest civil engineering projects. a monolithic monument to progress. the belo monte dam is brazil's answer to its growing energy needs. mired in controversy and allegations of corruption, the $18 billion dam partially blocks the xingu, a major amazon tributary and has flooded thousands of acres of rainforest. there's a human cost too. the local fishing industry has been decimated. thousands of riverside dwellers, or ribeirinhos, have lost their land and livelihoods, forced into a completely alien urban environment. we get angry, says this man, showing us his now worthless fishing licence. we see these corporations making millions from what used to be ours, he says, and we can't even use the river any more. building the dam brought hundreds ofjobs to the riverside town of altamira but it also led to increasing deforestation

and the permanent loss of many low—lying islands. but say the rivers and their energy are there to be harnessed for the greater good of brazil. i will definitely defend the presence of hydro, technology in our portfolio of technologies. in the developed part of the world, almost 70% of the hydro potential has already been explored. in brazil, almost 70% of our hydro potential has not in explored yet. brazil says it wants to build at least 50 hydroelectric dams across the amazon. the government saying it is clean, sustainable energy, but the impact of so many of these structures on the world's greatest river system, its environment and its people, will be immense. next in line for development,

the tapajos — described as the most beautiful river in the amazon region and home to the munduruku indigenous peoples. a plan to build several dams along its length would transform this wide shallow river into it navigable water highway. but it would flood forests and islands used by the munduruku for centuries. tribal chiefs say they will resist any attempts to build dams on the river. translation: the government always comes here with its lies. there's not one place one of them has been built that has turned out good for locals and for our tribes. there is only misery and complaints. these tattooed warriors of the amazon are taking on powerful business and political interests that want to weaken environmental legislation and fast track the building of hydroelectric dams. clean energy and the promise ofjobs

versus the rights of indigenous tribes and whether to exploit or protect this fragile ecosystem. it was the football story that stunned the world. leicester city were a wholly improbable 5,000—1 to win the english premier league last season. but they did just that and now their italian manager claudio ranieri has been rewarded by being named fifa coach of the year. as expected cristiano ronaldo was men's player of the year at the inaugural best fifa football awards in zurich, with american carli lloyd winning the best female player despite the us failing to get a medal at the rio 0lympics. thank you so much. of course, i want

to thank my family, my wife, my agents, my players, my players. without them, it is difficult for the manager to win something. also ourfans. i the manager to win something. also our fans. i think the manager to win something. also ourfans. i think what the manager to win something. also our fans. i think what happened last season in england was amazing, it was something strange. the god of football said, leicester must win. i hate to break it to you but christmas is over and a problem many people face is how to get rid of their christmas tree. well, in a town in southern germany, they may have found a novel solution. an athletic championship where you can throw them away, literally. the bbc‘s tim allman explains. in weidenthal, they were signing up to compete. a world championship no less, in throwing christmas trees. a complicated business where you can throw the tree as high as you can or as far as you can. translation: the knutfest is an old tradition that

originates from scandinavia. saint knut was the king of denmark. he was killed and was a matyr. in sweden, the knutfest and christmas tree throwing has a long tradition. we adapted it and are now throwing our own party. there are a number of different approaches. some swing the tree round like a hammer, others pretend it's a javelin. yelling cheering the women's event was won by alexandra koepper, with a throw not far off 16 metres. cheering the best male throw, more than 23 metres, a new world record. not bad for an amateur. translation: yes, the current world record holder was a bit weak today and i took my chance despite the lack of training. but a lot of mulled wine.

a smile, a wave, and a title to defend next year. tim allman, bbc news. this deer ended up on a frozen river in connecticut. unable to get its footing. rescuers tried for some time to get it secure and safe with a blanket. not the easiest thing to do on a icy frozen river. but eventually — the deer made it to the riverbank — and was soon off back into the woods. in tirana, very quickly, the funeral of the former president of iran has now begun. goodbye. good by the end of the day, we will

have some patchy rain and drizzle. we start the day with a touch of frost and ice around first thing. temperatures are already on the rise by eight o'clock. there will be sunny spells and a a lot more clout in the west. here, tabriz is picking up. —— cloud. —— the breeze is picking up. there will be one or two showers running across northern england as well. cloudier and mild to the far west of scotland. a blustery start. eastern areas start with a bit of sunshine. amounts will increase and it is taking away the morning sunshine. gale force winds in the north of scotland and some occasional rain. nothing too substantial but temperatures by the end of the day into double figures.

into tuesday night, the wind is picking up across northern scotland, severe gales across the far north, a speu severe gales across the far north, a spell of rain. outbreaks of rain turning lighter and patchy as they work south. that will introduce called at. as we start the morning, called at. as we start the morning, called at. as we start the morning, called a further north. showers is turning wintry. quite a windy day across the board on wednesday. if you are on the move, take note of the forecast. you could see gusts that will take on impact on travel. —— have an impact. rain is further south where there will be more clout and temperatures holding up here. we are opening the door to arctic air —— cloud. north—westerly winds and into thursday. we need to watch this feature. it will push into the south. mainly of rain into the english channel but nudges northwards and interacts with the colder air and some counties of

england could see snow. it is very uncertain at the moment. the main risk of snow on thursday with frequent snow showers in northern and western areas. eastern areas, the odd flurry but most places will be dry and sunny. for all, though, it will be called. temperatures, when you factor in the icy winds, it will feel like subzero. this is bbc world news, the headlines: donald trump has named his son—in—law as a senior white house adviser. democrats immediately called for a review ofjared kushner‘s appointment to the president—elect‘s team, citing nepotism laws and potential conflicts of interest. the funeral is taking place for iran's former president, akbar hashemi rafsanjani who died on sunday at the age of 82. mr rafsanjani left the presidency twenty years ago but was a leading moderate voice in iranian politics. more than 30 people have died as a cold snap from the arctic circle takes hold in central and eastern europe. charities are concerned for refugees crossing the continent on foot or living in informal settlements. the brazilian government has told

the bbc that it intends to build hydro—electric dams across the amazon region. it says the controversial programme will boost the economy,