a bad day. scattering of isn't a bad day. scattering of showers, a fair amount of sunshine around as well. temperatures, not much to write home about. a decent start to tuesday and then we will bring another set of fronts in from the atlantic. more rain, more wind and cloud. i will tell you about that in half an hour. hello, this is bbc news with me, maxine mawhinney. the headlines at 1:30pm: the chancellor, phillip hammond, has dismissed as "reckless" calls for him to increase spending in his first budget on wednesday. we are spending over £50 billion per year, just on paying the interest on oui’ year, just on paying the interest on our debt, more than we spend on defence and overseas aid together. barack 0bama has denied accusations by president trump that he ordered phones at trump tower in new york to be tapped during last year's us election. the chinese premier has warned

that the country's economy is facing a number of threats — and has announced a lower growth target of 6.5%. a memorial is to be built close to the beaches of the d—day landings in northern france, to honour the thousands of british soldiers and sailors who died during the operation in 1944. now on bbc news, the travel show. this week i'm hitting the powder on the ski slopes of fukushima. laughter. we're on the lookout for shooting stars in the dark skies of alberta. 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, how are you? great, how are you? 0k, welcome to the top. look about, great sunshine. amazing. great view. let's get skiing! this looks tricky. i need help, 0k? music. here we go. maybe i should have practiced before the cameras started rolling. it scares me. woah! laughter. i was scared!

and just when i think i'm doing 0k... nice bumping into you! how are we going to disentangle ourselves? laughter. i might not be making the most of the powder here, but there are plenty who are, and the number of people coming here to ski is almost back at pre—201! levels. there's so much snow, and it's just... it's almost guaranteed to get snow, pretty much. i have never... my third year back to japan and every time there is so much snow. it's incredible, for sure. but businesses are having to work hard to draw tourists, especially those from overseas. cash incentives are being offered

to some international visitors and it's hoped younger skiers and boarders will give fu kushima 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. joe, hi. it's good to meet you finally. i can't miss you in that red car. well, we do try to be a little obvious.

so tell me about safecast — what does it do in terms of radiation here injapan? safecast is measuring the radiation ever since the tsunami incident back in 2011. 0n 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. the sensor will record every five seconds and write it to the memory, but it also transmits to this box you're holding, so we can see what it is as we're moving around. great. so we're at 0.2 right now — is that high? that's about world average, but most places in the world are below average. there is a very few places that are very much higher than average — they bring the average up.

typical levels in the world are 0.1 to 0.15. we were filming up at the resort and they were saying, "there's no problem with radiation here any more." 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. and it's notjust moving sensors. there are also fixed monitors dotted around the region that safecast help install and update. and this is one of our hosts. konnichiwa. welcome to the mountain. one of the more picturesque sensor locations is on this zen buddhist temple in fukushima city. just after the earthquake and after the accident the government and the local government told us the data, but some people say it's

deceptive or modified, so i made them feel safe. we need to do it by ourselves, so let's make the people safe. 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 up, its global gourmet.

this week we're in muharraq, in the the north—east of bahrain. my name is naris qambar. i'm the owner of saffron cafe. my cafe is built on an original date press, and that's what inspired me to do this dish today, which is rangeena, a very local bahraini dish. so the base of this dish is overripe dates, so right now what i'll be doing is i'll be deseeding them, and stuffing them with indian almond nuts. so if you don't have any indian almond nuts on hand you can always go for walnuts, almonds, pistachios, whatever nuts you have. and now we're going to roast wholewheat flour. we want the colour to change to a bit of a light golden. add butter, and a bit of oil. i like to add a little bit of icing sugar, but this is an option. i like to add cardamom,

and a little bit of cinnamon. now we pour... and decorate it with some walnuts, a sprinkling of some indian almond, some pistachios. there you have it — rangeena, a typical summer dish for when we have lots of overripe dates.

coming up next on the travel show, we head to canada, a country that celebrating its 150th birthday this year. in a moment, we'll be going ice canoeing in quebec. but first, we're off to two of the world's largest dark sky preserves in alberta, to meet the astrophotographers who capture truly breathtaking shots of the night sky. i'm considered the northern lights aurora specialist. when i'm out all by myself, sometimes in —30, —35, it is total darkness, you cannot see anything. but then when the lights, the northern lights come on, it is as bright as noon. and it was, like, wow, how small you are, and it's just amazing. the northern lights are about...

i was invited this year to teach how to do night sky photography, including time—lapse video making, and structuring those images. you need some help from the moon, so i love the moon. the half moon is great. the full moon is a little hard because it's too bright. music plays. here injasper national park i am lucky enough to be the photo video guy for the park which means i get

to go out and capture all kinds of things including scenery, wildlife, events, and share them with the world. when i first moved to jasper i lived just outside town and it was really dark there. and every night i was treated to a fantastic sky, and i could walk out, no lights, so i could look up and see the milky way above me, and it wasjust so awe inspiring. so of course i started bringing my camera out, and capturing the night sky. shooting the night sky, you want to try to get something unique, and for me i'm always trying to push my boundaries, so how can you get that composition together to create... where is that milky way going to be? where is that mountain going to lie? where can you get the reflection of that river, or that lake, in there? then if you happen to get a shooting star, in another area that you really want,

well, you know, that's once—in—a—lifetime. 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. on top of the scootering, i'm told i'll also have to watch out for big chunks of ice slamming into my oars. keep rowing, keep rowing! then unclip it, quickly. yeah! that is the kind of surprise the saint lawrence would give you, with a big piece of ice bigger than your car. i did almost nothing. even practising on solid ground is tricky. scootering, front! these guys are fast. row in front, so we go down — are we sitting? are we sitting? row in front! scootering, front! oh, my goodness. laughter. 0k. 0k — stop, stop, stop! stop, stop! the thought of doing this on the open river feels terrifying.

when we're going to go from the water to the ice, the canoe is going to shake out a bit because me and emily are going tojump on the ice, and we don't expect you to do anything like that. if you ever see us going through the ice, don't worry — we're fine. we'll stand up and it will not be a big deal. but ijust want to warn you... laughter. it's going to be fun! 0k. so get your scootering position... ok, let's go. 0h! 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. ok, i have to ask you, because as soon as we hit the ice, my adrenaline just shot up and i really got scared. 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. right now the tide goes this way, the current goes this way, and six hours afterward, the current will go this way. up to the great lakes, up to montreal, so that is why the ice is so broken like this. so what happens now? now we are going to row a little bit. instead of scootering, we start rowing right there. wow. ok, let's try this.

it's not that scary now! but i don't want to go in that freezing water — that would be terrifying. but now it feels... it feels good. actually i've never rowed before, so i'm not really a good asset to the team. rowing between the icy banks of the river is beautiful, but i'm worried about colliding with some of the enormous ships moored along the banks. why are we so close to this boat? oh, my gosh, get me out of here! scootering, front!

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. but the more we jump between the boat and the ice, the more i relax and actually start to enjoy this icy wonderland. brandy, this is one of my little personal pleasures. broken dishes. i give you one, i get one and... broken dishes! it's like a greek restaurant! all right. laughter. yeah!

going good! we hit the ice again and i realise that with enough momentum the boat will slide easily over the surface, like a sledge. that is really intense. i don't even know how to explain that because i have never done anything like that. it is exciting but it is just wild. it is like being on a wild roller—coaster ride on ice. despite my initial reservations, i have to say that trying out ice canoeing has been an incredible and uniquely canadian experience, and i have come away with nothing but admiration for the teams who make it look so simple here on the mighty saint lawrence river. 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. you don't want to follow them on

twitter, you just want to go with them! must get out more! if you are out and about this afternoon, pick your spot as to where you are heading. also some trouble in aberdeenshire yesterday, the rain kept coming! rain has to fall in someone's life, it fell across steve na g e, someone's life, it fell across stevenage, not just someone's life, it fell across stevenage, notjust there, but a widespread across the midlands and east anglia, not going further north, plenty of showers to the south. they make going out for some timea south. they make going out for some time a bit unpleasant, windy conditions here, and eventually, it moves into the near continent, causing some chaos. 0n moves into the near continent, causing some chaos. on monday, a quieter night to follow for many of us, showers in western scotland, new rain in the south—western quarter,

from south wales to the isle of wight. notice a bit of wintry conditions across the moors, i don't think it will be a massive issue. around nine o'clock on monday morning, it is not a bad day really across the great part of scotland. an indication of some showers, across ayrshire and dumpers and galloway, much of northern ireland is glorious. not one —— don freese and galloway. this rain across the south—west could be a nuisance for some time, it will be windy, and exposed roots, like the 839 and the 830, some surface water between exeter and plymouth —— a39 and a30. elsewhere, the best of the sunshine, a spot of showers on occasion for some parts. something more organised getting back into northern ireland to finish off the day, perhaps the

school run, a late commute, that kind of thing. monday into tuesday, this rich of high—pressure settles things, killing showers, the sky is clear. a fresh start with a touch of frost brown. dryad bright but do not be fooled. in western areas, generally speaking, the further east you are, you will stay dry. pushing ever further eastwards, this weather front comes across the british isles and as you thought it would clear through, in the southern counties committee was stuck with it! showers in north scotland, in between, not a bad day. more available on the website, see you in 30 minutes. if this is bbc news. the headlines at 2pm: you are the chancellor phillip hammond rejects calls for "huge spending you are sprees" in his first post—brexit budget on wednesday. a

as we embark on the journey that we'll be taking over the next couple of years, we are confident that we've enough gas in the tank to see us through that journey. president trump is told to prove his claims that barack 0bama ordered his phones to be tapped during the election. also in the next hour — francois fillon faces a crucial test of his popularity. the supporters of the scandal—hit french presidential candidate gather for a rally in paris, as cracks emerge in his campaign. these are the live scenes of the gathering in the shadow of the eiffel tower. boxer tony bellew, upsets the odds by beating david haye,