37::r. ‘uli‘é: “a 37“? i‘flitiéi “a e“ brighten a touch, wales but should brighten a touch, maybe a glimmer of sunshine especially the midlands in central and southern england. because it is worn out, 20 degrees in the clouds, where you get sunshine it is 23. —— because it is warmer air, 20 degrees under the cloud. are hello. this is bbc news. the headlines: north korea says it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb that could be loaded onto a long—range missile. the regime said its test of the bomb — which is many times more powerful than an atomic bomb —

was a "perfect success". the international atomic energy agency called the test ‘matter of grave concern‘. president trump tweeted that north korea's ‘words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the united states‘. and foreign secretary borisjohnson has also criticised the regime. there is no question that this is another provocation. it is reckless, what they are doing is they seem to be moving closer to the hydrogen bomb which, if it is fitted to a successful missile would unquestionably present a new order of threat. the prime minister appeals for unity amongst her pro—eu mps ahead of a debate over the government‘s brexit repeal bill next week. if passed, the bill would transfer eu law into uk legislation. david davis said the uk will continue to meet its international obligations. we have said the era of big payments to the european union is coming to

an end. we will still be being something i suspect. the nhs in england may suffer its worst winter in recent history if it does not receive an emergency bailout, hospital chiefs are warning. they want up to £350 million to pay for extra staff and more hospital beds to reduce waiting times. and in sport, britain‘s lewis hamilton finished in pole position at this afternoon‘s formula one italian grand prix in monza. now on bbc news — witness looks back to the dark days of the partition of india, 70 years on. hello, i am lucy hockings.

welcome to witness, here at the british library in london. this month we have another five people who have witnessed extraordinary moments in history first—hand. we will be remembering a royal wedding injapan, a remarkable feat of engineering under the alps, and a new way of giving birth. but first, we are going back to august 1947, when india gained independence from britain and was split into two countries, mainly hindu india and mainly muslim pakistan. partition affected the lives of millions of families. mohammad amir ahmed khan‘s was one of them. i am mohammad amir ahmed khan, known as sulaiman to family and friends, the raja of mahmudabad. i am from a muslim family which once ruled a very large feudal estate, including the beautiful a palace in mahmudabad in which we still live.

but the indian government is laying claim to my property, saying that it is enemy property. no—one is paying for it, so these days, everything is crumbling. this dispute goes back to 1947. the partition of india into two states, a muslim majority state called pakistan, and a hindu majority state of india. it was estimated that one million people died, ten million people were displaced. some muslims went to

the state of pakistan. many hindus came to india. it was not just the country that was divided. families were divided, too. in the late ‘50s, my father took pakistani nationality, and that is when my family‘s problems began, because when india and pakistan went to war in 1965, the government laid claim to our properties. there was an act of parliament called the enemy property act, which empowered the government to take over temporarily the properties of pakistanis. it was notjust our family which was affected. thousands of families were affected. the properties are worth billions of dollars. but our issue is that only my father took pakistani nationality.

i have always been an indian. my mother was always an indian. we had to fight our case from the lowest to the highest court, and in every court we won. and the supreme courtjudge said that by no stretch of imagination could i be considered an enemy, and considered me the heir to my father‘s properties, but then the government went and changed the laws and the battle has begun again. i suppose, like so many people in india and pakistan, we are still caught up in the repercussions of partition

and the acrimonious relations between india and pakistan. in a way, i have been forced to live in the past. and with apologies to yeats, ifeel as if i am drowning in a beauty that has long since faded from this earth. mohammad amir ahmed khan, speaking to us from his beautiful family palace in uttar pradesh. next, to the summer of 1965, when a remarkable feat of engineering opened to the public. the mont blanc tunnel runs for 11 kilometres under the alps. franco cuaz worked on the project. a road tunnel under mont blanc. the dream of decades has come true and the paris—rome motorjourney is cut by 300 miles.

to both france and italy this was an historic occasion. the joint opening ceremony was performed by general degaulle and president saragat. from here, this looks a pretty big hole, but when you think of the size of the mountain through which it is being driven, it is rather like trying to drive a needle through the granite franco cuaz is 91 now, and long retired, but he still lives near the mont blanc tunnel. now, in 1977 a state hospital near paris began quietly changing the way that women gave birth. obstetrician dr michel 0dent believed that childbirth had become too medicalised. he wanted a more natural approach, so he introduced a pool to ease the pain of labour. there is something special about the relationship between human beings and water. as soon as it is lifted into the air, its lungs start to work normally.

dr michel 0dent, obstetrician, this is his maternity unit, run according to his deeply felt beliefs about women and natural childbirth. the right place to give birth would be the right place to make love. when i arrived in 1962, the way women were giving birth was the same as in any hospital, on a table, with legs in stirrups. but gradually, gradually, we reconsidered everything. we have introduced the concept of home—like birthing rooms, a smaller room with no visible medical equipment, to help women to feel more at home in the hospital. at a time when they still have the vision as hospital

as a place where you come when you‘re sick, to die. 1:00am, and a young couple have driven 150 miles to have their first baby here, in an ordinary state hospital in northern france. by changing the environment, we have attracted more women to our maternity unit, women coming from far away. and that is why i became an obstetrician! from 200 births a year, to 1,000 births a year. a pool to help mothers ease the pain of labour. babies are occasionally born under water. we have painted the walls in blue, dolphins on the walls. many women in labour could not wait.

they wanted to enter the birthing pool before it was full. they could not wait. the main objective was to break the vicious circle by replacing drugs. all medication, all drugs have side—effects. after being in the womb in warm fluid for nine months, the baby emerges happily into the warm water with its life—support system from the mother still intact. i remember the visit we had with this british obstetrician. what do you think of the pool? well, i do not think we would have room for it in our hospital. and i find dr 0dent's views about it a wonderful mixture of mysticism and science.

i do not think the word "mysticism" is appropriate. it is true that i tried to consider in a scientific language some emotional state. translation: it felt like a family atmosphere, very reassuring. it gave you confidence in yourself, and that is what i needed. i was pleased when i heard women talking in a positive way about the birth of their babies. we have to learn from positive experiences, that is the way forward. michel 0dent now lives in london and birthing pools are widely available in hospitals. remember, you can watch witness every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on over a thousand radio programmes in our online archive. just go to bbc.co.uk/witness. next, we‘re going back to august

1972 when the dictator idi amin ordered uganda‘s asian minority to leave the country, accusing them of sabotaging the economy. 80,000 people were forced to leave uganda, including gita watts. we had 90 days to sort everything out, to get out of the country and he sort of made the impression that if we didn‘t get out on time, we‘d be sitting on fire. more than 12,000 towns and villages like this in uganda. in every one of them, the government is pressing its campaign against the asian traders.

the asian community was close—knit, all the asian shops inrolled together and we all knew each other. each family and all the kids knew each other. we weren‘t well off but we were comfortable. people started rushing to the embassies and my dad had to sign everything over. that means his assets and his business, over to the ugandan bank. we were given £55, that‘s all he was allowed to take with him. it was just unbelievable, you know, after everything that he earned, he was just left with £55. when we first got to the airport, people‘s luggage was opened and people were checking for gold and money and, for some reason, my parents put a ring on my finger. we were told to get that ring off me because the ring was so tight

we struggled to take it off. my parents tried everything to take this ring off. in the end, it was cut off. the scariest bit was that we had soldiers with guns and knives surrounding us. i was panicking trying to get this ring off. it was a relief that we had to go on this plane then the plane was taking off. my dad was probably thinking, you know, he got his family out of the country at last. but he was leaving back something that he really loved, the country that he loved. the asians arrived in cold wet weather at stansted, whole families arriving with little cash. the few belongings they brought often seemed of nothing more than sentimental. the time of the year we arrived it was wintertime. that made it worse as well with the rain. i had not seen the snow before.

we were scared because we didn‘t know where would we go. i mean, my mum was told to take us to leicester, a town called leicester, we didn‘t know what it was like, we didn‘t know any english, when i grew up and went to secondary school i came through a lot of racial abuse from kids, you know, calling names and waiting for me outside school and wanting to like beat me up and not liking my colour. recently, we just went back to uganda. i just wanted to see the country that i was born in and why my parents loved that country so much. it was nice to go back to the hospital where i was born. it really was an amazing experience. in all, 60,000 asians were expelled from uganda,

nearly half settled in britain, including gita watts. finally back to 1959 and a ground—breaking royal wedding in japan. witness has been to tokyo to meet a tv director whose coverage of the event entranced the nation. so he marries a commoner, breaking tradition of over 2600 years. the ceremony lasting 15 minutes took place in a wooden shrine within the walls of the imperial palace. there was no hint of any western influence in the wedding ritual. in robes such as the members of the imperial family have worn for centuries, the crown prince and his bride were made man and wife. burdened by no fewer than 12 kimonos, it took the princess three hours to dress. the total weight was 33 pounds. cheers accompanied them all the way as they proceeded on their drive through tokyo.

that is all from us this month. i hope you willjoin us next month back here at the british library. we‘ll have five extraordinary accounts of history through the eyes of people who were there. for now, from me and the rest of the team at witness, goodbye. quite a blanket of cloud across the uk with rain and drizzle, it‘s moving very slowly east and if we pick up the story as we head into the evening perhaps the worst of the rain clearing away from cornwall and devon but bursts heading to the london area to the home counties, generally dry cool and wet still for wales, not much rain for the north—east of england and as we move into scotland rain more in the west of scotla nd into scotland rain more in the west of scotland beginning to clear away from northern ireland, still some clearer skies this evening in the north—east of scotland which is where we see the best of the

weather, this is a recent weather watcher picture in aberdeenshire. not a great deal of sunshine around today and overnight we will see the cloud continuing to push its way slowly east, the rain and drizzle becoming much lighter, more patchy, hell and coastal fog towards the west, warm night. tomorrow starts cloudy and misty and murky, drizzly showers around, spell of rain coming m, showers around, spell of rain coming in, scotland could be a bit heavy over the hell is even with the cloud 19,20 over the hell is even with the cloud 19, 20 degrees likely, some sunshine 22 or 23 is possible. still have a weather front on the scene, it‘s going to pep up the rain abet overnight from the south west heading into wales, midlands and northern england, the worst of it beginning clearing away from northern england into the north sea,

bursts of rain seeping through the midlands towards the south—east, uncertain as to how quickly that will clear away but otherwise we get a change of air, colour and fresher, sunshine around, 12 showers may be towards the north—west. as we head towards the north—west. as we head towards the north—west. as we head towards the middle part of the week everything is coming all the way from the atlantic, westerly winds, sunshine and showers, showers more likely to be across western areas and the north—west in particular. that is about average for the time of year, temperatures will keep over the week ahead and the atlantic westerly winds will continue to blow in some showers or maybe some longer spells of rain and the end of the week looks particularly wet and windy and you might say very autumnal. this is bbc news. the headlines at 3pm... north korea says it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb capable of being fitted to an inter—continental missile. there‘s been worldwide condemnation.

experts warn that north korea‘s nuclear capability is advancing rapidly. president trump tweets that north korea is a "rogue nation" and a "great threat". the foreign secretary borisjohnson has also condemned the test. there is no question that this is another provocation. it is reckless. what they are doing, they seem to be moving closer towards a hydrogen bomb, which is fitted to a successful missile would unquestionably present a new order of threat. the prime minister appeals for unity amongst her pro—eu mps ahead of a debate of the government‘s brexit repeal bill next week. the brexit secretary said the eu is making itself look "silly"