for an apparent chemical weapons attack during the battle for mosul. it's understood that 12 people have been hospitalised, but it's unclear exactly which chemical was used. the centre—right candidate in the french presidential race, francois fillon, has had another setback. his campaign manager has quit. it's the latest sign that he's losing support in the face of a corruption scandal. a former journalist, juan thompson, has been accused of making bomb threats againstjewish centres and of cyber—stalking his ex—girlfriend. it's alleged thompson sent threats to a jewish school in michigan, thejewish history museum in new york and a community center in manhattan. now on bbc news, the travel show. this week i'm hitting the powder on the ski slopes of fu kushima. whoo!

you guys are crazy! and brandy's trying out ice canoeing in quebec city. woohoo! hello and welcome to the travel show, coming to you this week from japan, where it's just after six o'clock here in tokyo and we're about to hit the road. we're heading off before sunrise... let's do it. to make the four—hour journey to fukushima. most people associate fukushima with the impact of the major earthquake and tsunami that hit japan on march 11th six years ago. the tsunami wave disabled the generators at the fukushima power plant, triggering a nuclear meltdown. but before 2011, the region had been

famous for it's ski resorts, and was popular with tourists. in the months following the nuclear disaster fears about radiation levels hit the tourism industry hard. and the number of foreign visitors staying here fell by 90%. now in many parts of the region background radiation has fallen to levels similar to those that are found in major cities around the world, and tourists are returning. we made it. look at all this snow. can't wait. i'm heading to try out the slopes for myself.

i only learned to ski for the first time two weeks ago, so it's probably a good idea if i get some tips from a local before i head down the mountain. hello! hi, kei, how are you? great, how are you? 0k, welcome to the top. look about, great sunshine. amazing. great view and let's get skiing! this looks tricky. i need help, 0k? here we go. maybe i should have practiced before the cameras started rolling. ah! it scares me. whoo! laughs

i'm so scared! and just when i think i'm doing 0k... whoo! nice bumping into you! how are we going to disentangle ourselves? laughs but businesses are having to work ha rd to but businesses are having to work hard to draw tourists, especially those from overseas. cash incentives are offered to some international visitors and it is hoped young people will give fukushima daiichi to —— give the cushion a try. translation: we're doing a special promotion for young people, because they're less worried about fu kushima's reputation. so we invite people aged between 19 and 2a to ski for free. and we're hoping they'll spread the word on social media that fukushima is safe.

reassuring people about the region's safety is a big deal here, and the food and water supply is routinely tested. the disaster also prompted groups of volunteers to start monitoring the radiation for themselves. this crowdsourced data is constantly being updated, and anyone can access it, so if you're heading to the area you can take a look. safecast is measuring the radiation ever since the tsunami incident back in 2011. on the car, this is a geiger counter, which includes a gps and a small computer, so what it does is when i drive around it measures the radiation every five seconds and records the location, the time and the level on a sd card inside, then later we read it out on a computer and upload it and put it on a map on the web so everybody can see it. joe and the other volunteers in the network have taken millions of readings over the past six years. there's no zero risk level of radiation.

a very small amount of radiation is a very small risk, and especially over in izu, where you were, the levels of contamination there were very low so the risk is very low — not zero, but lower than most places in the world. everyone here is keen to get the message across that fukushima is safe. only the immediate area around the reactor is off—limits, and these ski slopes are over 100 kilometres from the power plant. but it's going to take an enormous push to make the name fukushima synonymous with these snowy peaks and not the terrible events of 2011. next — we're travelling over 2000 miles to the east of canada to try out a sport that has its origins in the country's past. si, c'est groupe voyages quebec qui est sortie par...

we sent brandy yanchyk to give it a go. this is the mighty saint lawrence river in quebec city that connects the great lakes of canada with the atlantic ocean. for hundreds of years the only way of crossing from one bank to the other during the winter was to make the journey by canoe, rowing through the fast flowing icy water and pushing the boat over the sections that were frozen solid. et regardez, medames et messieurs... now, ice canoeing is a sport and speed races are held here every year, during the city's winter carnival. i've come down to the banks of the riverfor a lesson. ready to try it? we will practice the transition. what is your best leg, the left or the right? i would say my right. your right, so you will be on this side with your left leg inside the boat, and the scootering, and your right one.

have a position... pushing the canoe over the ice is called scootering, and he makes the transition look simple. i'm going to prove otherwise. yeah, pushing up the boat... stop, stop, stop. 0k, have a seat right there. have a seat? yes. then, get ready. you will make the transition, you will feel something like this... keep rowing. you're doing good. even practising on solid ground is tricky. these guys are fast. are we sitting? row in front! scootering, front! oh, my goodness. laughter 0k — stop, stop, stop! stop, stop! the thought of doing this on the open river feels terrifying. it's going to be fun!

so get your scootering position... 0h! you 0k? yes. laughter you guys are crazy! we're using specialised equipment and the ice is thick. yeah! keep pushing. but i can't shake the fear that we're going to smash right through the ice into the river. so how do you feel right now? i need to sit down. are you sure this is safe? yes, absolutely. why? because the more bumpy it is, the more the ice is thick, the more solid it is.

here, you have the tide, absolutely unique. now we are going to row a little bit. ok, let's try this. as soon as we hit a section of ice, we have to jump out for scootering. scootering, back! even with spiked shoes to grip the ice this isn't easy. matching the rhythm of the rest of the team feels impossible. whoo! but the more we jump between the boat and the ice, the more i relax and actually start to enjoy this icy wonderland. well, brandy yanchyk trying her hand at ice canoeing in quebec,

and it definitely looks colder there than it is here injapan. well, that's all we've got time for this week. coming up next week... ade‘s in finnish lapland, finding out why these herds of reindeer are vital to the threatened culture of the indigenous sami people who live in this frozen part of the world. i wouldn't want to get hit by one of them, though. join us for that next week, and don't forget if you want to follow us on the road in real time you can sign up to our social media feeds. all the details should be on your screen 110w. but until next time, from me, carmen roberts, and the rest of the travel show team in japan, it's goodbye. newswatch. they got their envelopes

mixed up but did bbc news get its news priorities at the wrong way around? news priorities at the wrong way around ? the news priorities at the wrong way around? the embarrassment of the 0scar reported as though it was of global significance at really, was it? did you by any chance no things did not go entirely to plan at the 0scars? if you tuned in on monday, the strange events on stage were ha rd to the strange events on stage were hard to avoid. it really should not have been that difficult, opening the envelope and naming the right film but in front of a global audience of billions, it all went horribly wrong. warren beatty and faye dunaway announced the winner

was la la land but the trouble was, it wasn't. another mistake this time by the bbc, as well as setting up sick became the time on breakfast and the news channel, the envelope mixup occupied several minutes of both the news at one and on six. any people considered many more significant articles were put down the order such as a hearing on child sex abuse. to viewers reported on it. i cannot the bbc would consider this important enough to devote so much of the programme to it when there is so much happening around there is so much happening around the world. i have no objection to it getting a mention but keep the headlines for newsworthy items. you

are providing a public service. let me say i am are providing a public service. let me saylama are providing a public service. let me say i am a great fan of the bbc and particularly the breakfast programme but i was absolutely gobsmacked when the other day when warren beatty made these envelope mistake for the award ceremony. it seemed suddenly the bbc went into a separate universe. we have donald trump trying to manipulate the media. we have north korea threatening a new arms race and yet the whole world comes to a standstill because warren beatty opens the wrong envelope. is that bbc losing perspective on this sort of thing? it dominated the news for the rest of the day and in fact the next day. i was sick of hearing about it. get a grip. no awards from viewers for best

news broadcaster there. the disgruntlement continued through the week. bbc news reported on thursday that the two accountants from pricewaterhousecoopers held responsible for the fiasco would not be working on the oscars again and on friday they would be given bodyguards following threats on social media. stuart reynolds was another viewer who thought bbc news was living in la la land, tweeting. .. well, another viewer who contacted us this week was mary kavanagh. she is in our 0xford studio. also we have the bbc controller of daily news programming, gavin allen. mary, what was your objection? i felt exactly the same as those to viewers that have just given their views. there was so much time spent on this one silly item and i think my views were, from the breakfast programme where dan walker and louise were trying desperately to keep the momentum going and they were so excited, oh, we are going to the red carpet!

and we went to the red carpet and there was this poor man standing in a kilt, desperately trying to speak to somebody and he couldn't get anybody to speak to him. i think he would have grabbed a cleaner if he could and it was just silly. i know there is always an issue every year with 0scars coverage... there is. ..but this year it was compounded. is it because it is fun? of course, it makes a nice refreshing change in the mix. viewers just feel you overdo it. 0n the six 0'clock news we did a five—minute item on this. it was at the top of the running order so i'm not suggesting we under played it. 12 hours after it happened... but it's on the day of this event and for millions of people, this is the first time they have had coming back from work to actually see what happened, why it happened, what's the outcome and the ramifications of it.

it's more thanjust a fun item. this is probably the major event in the calendar for the entertainment industry and it is the biggest blunder in that entertainment industry's history, arguably. it is perfectly right that we cover a range of stories but a part of that includes entertainment and popular culture. mary, it is the biggest entertainment industry's story of the year and that is why it warranted that slot at that time. yes. i don't think it is, actually. i don't think, with the greatest respect, it is the great big media event that everybody‘s interested in. did you also have a view of what other stories were given less coverage or dropped off the running order? i don't know what they were because itjust seemed that everything was 0scars, 0scars, 0scars. i believe there was a child abuse item but it was squashed into a corner and a didn't really absorb it. that's one of the big concerns that a lot of viewers got in touch with.

the abuse inquiry really should have been the lead. maybe you could have made this the third headline and people would have been waited for it. it's the bbc giving priority to something that it shouldn't have. it's not a science that different programmes have led on different items. indeed, the ten 0'clock news didn't lead on 0scars, the six 0'clock news did. one thing to pick up, it was the most watched, shared, viewed item across the week, this gaffe, this blow. we hear that a lot on it newsweek. it's quite important. i think it's an interesting question about the audience for bulletins as opposed to the audience online who know that they can go and read a lot in depth but when they turn on the bulletin, they're wanting the bbc to tell them what the most important stories are kind of in in the right order and i think you failed. but what is the right order? your right order is going to be different to mine, to mary's and all the people that have been writing and texting in. it is a subjective matter, it is not objective. there is no correct order.

what would have been absolutely incorrect is if we hadn't covered the child sex abuse inquiry and so much so that we previewed it on the ten 0'clock news the night before and had substantial coverage across the day. in the mix, you have to have a range of stories but what news can't be is just about death tolls in descending orders or disasters in descending orders. it is a range, a mix of stories. it can feel like the bbc‘s trying to keep up with social media where these kinds of showbiz stories have huge traction and you can read loads. i suppose some in the audience say it is not the bbc‘s business to be trying to compete with that showbiz social media led world. no but it's the bbc's business, surely, to give audiences a range of stories. there will be people who don't think we should be covering sport at all. what difference does sport make in the great scheme of things. and others who think you absolutely should, this is the passion of my life. the same for entertainment, the same for politics. there will be many that think we bang on too much about politics, others who think we don't get into the nitty—gritty of it enough. it's always about

the range and the mix. the other issue is that this has gone on all week. we kind of knew on the first day there was a mix—up with the envelope, then some detail about how, but that is it. on thursday and friday it felt as though it was again just dominating a lot of airtime about these accountancy workers getting bodyguards and are they going to work again at the oscars. and people say it was not warranted, that amount of air time. did it dominate airtime, really? the amount of air time. one of the big criticisms and a justified one of bbc and media generally can be that we do a huge amount on some story and then the juggernaut moves on and you never hear the end. what actually happened in this or that event? with this we are saying that there is a development, for those who are interested in this story and there are a great number who were, here is the next iteration of it. if it had been the lead story across four, five days, i would hold up my hand and say we had gone over the top. final word to you, mary,

what you feel about what you have heard and what could be better next time? i think that over the weeks newswatch, we have had lots and lots of items and complaint about the news actually putting their emphasis on showbiz things. my view is, you know, please, the majority of your viewers are license payers, they want to switch on and see a very balanced view of the news and i do not think you're providing it and please, please, will you try and make thebbc head and shoulders above the rest. mary kavanagh and gavin allen, thank you both very much. we look forward to hearing your thoughts on what you have heard in this programme or on any aspect of bbc news. i will let you know how to contact us at shortly. time for a couple more of your comments about what you have seen this week. there was some reaction on thursday to this story headlined here on the news channel. a bbc investigation has discovered that almost 4000

motorists a day in england are fined for driving in bus lanes. the most lucrative camera makes £6,000 every day. that word lucrative which also featured on the bbc news website's list of england's most lucrative bus lane cameras infuriated edward taylor who felt the reporting emphasised motorist‘s complaints about local councils making money from the cameras. on tuesday, an inquest into the deaths of 30 british tourists killed in a gun attack in tunisia in 2015 found they were unlawfully killed. the finding was widely covered on bbc news butjames franklin from stirling e—mailed us his objection to the way it was treated. thank you for all your

comments this week. please share with us your opinions on bbc news and current affairs. we may feature them on the programme or you can even appear in person. you can call or e—mail us. you can post your thoughts on twitter and do have a look at our website where you can search for and watch previous discussions. that's all from us. we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. good morning.

for most of us, friday was a miserable day but, for the favoured few, it was glorious. if you don't believe me, look at the weather watchers picture. not a cloud in the sky hardly. a beautiful day across the far north of scotland. but for most of us it was grey and grim. a lot of heavy rain around and this poor old garden in barnsley, well, that tells the tale, doesn't it, really, and it could be a soggy affairfor some of us over the weekend. but not all the time. there will be some rain around but some of us could manage to get some dry weather in there as well. particularly when you look at where the low pressure is. it's centred to the north across scotland and circulating around that low on the outer edge there will be some stronger winds but further inland we should get a decent slice of dryer weather. so do try to put that in context. it looks as though scotland, you will have a different day today. there will be a lot of cloud, rain around, snow to the tops of mountains, it will be cold as well. showery outbreaks of rain into northern ireland and a fair amount of cloud across

northern england. just head a little further south and first thing on saturday morning it's not a bad start for wales and much of central and southern england. into the far south—west it will be windy and wet at times. the strongest of the winds circulating around the outside edge of that area of low pressure. but a central and eastern parts of england, for you, not a bad day. there should be a decent slice of sunshine coming through. and, with a little shelter, some sunshine, those temperatures will feel reasonable at around ten or 12 degrees. not so the case with the cloud and rain further north. but it does mean for many of the premiership matches it looks as though it will be a largely dry affair. we could see some showers for the liverpool—arsenal evening kickoff there. now as we move out of saturday, we were talking about the potential for the stormy weather across the alps, still the risk of snow, significant snow to come, but for us a frontal system pushing into the far south—west brings a different story on sunday. for many it will be a pretty grim start to the second half

of the weekend with some heavy rain moving its way steadily north and east as we go through the day, and the winds increasing as well. so it'll be a dismal start but a slow improvement, so i suspect for the tottenham match hopefully the bulk of the rain will clear away but sunderland—man city could be a soggy affair. as we move into monday and tuesday it looks as though we will continue to see an unsettled spell of weather. quite cloudy but largely dry perhaps down to the south. hello, this is breakfast, with steph mcgovern and jon kay. victory for the democratic unionists, but only by a single seat in northern ireland's assembly elections. sinn fein were the night's big winners with a significant surge of support, as they closed the gap on the dup. good morning. it's saturday, march 4th.

we'll be live in belfast in the next few minutes. also ahead: mercedes recalls 75,000 cars in the uk because of a risk of them catching fire. sweeping away the small print — the chancellor promises a crackdown on consumer rip—offs. the uk could quit the eu without paying a penny. a house of lords report says the government isn't legally obliged