a decade later. his agent described him as "a t that's a summary of the news, newsday is coming up at midnight, now on bbc news it's time for newsnight. a country in ecstasy, as robert mugabe steps down. he resigns, after nearly four decades at zimba bwe‘s helm. but will it be more of the same in zimbabwe? we speak to morgan tsvangirai, the opposition leader and one—time prime minister, who battled mugabe at the ballot box. so, like in any new birth, i think the celebration represents a new... a new feeling. and i think it will go down like in 1980, when we got our independence, as a very memorable occasion. also tonight... ahead of the budget, the chancellor will be dotting the is and crossing the ts. but do we really need something far, far more radical?

we report from middlesborough. at the moment, struggling. when the food runs out, i'll start crying, and... and i'll... ask my daughter — hopefully she'll have something for me. or my son, my eldest son. and... but i ain't spending any time on it because in the meantime, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in queensland. good evening. when it happened, it almost happened too quickly. a letter read out in parliament that would herald the biggest political change the country has known for decades. and then, gently, like a ripple, word spread until it hit the streets, stopping conversations in mid flow, starting tears —

unbidden, unhidden and unembarrassed. robert mugabe no longer rules zimbabwe. that much still needs to sink in. tonight we ask how this very peaceful coup has managed to do what it set out to do, and whether zimba bwe‘s next leader will truly be a break with what has gone before. we also get the world's first interview after the news broke with zimbabwe's opposition leader and one—time prime minister morgan tsvingirai. all that to come, but we start, where else, but harare. our correspondent shingai nyoka is there. tell us what kind of david has been for you. it's been the most extraordinary day that i can remember since independence in 1980. i was a young girl then but i remember the celebration and the euphoria, the sense that this was a new beginning. and the scenes that i have witnessed a few hours ago today really brought back that

sense, that glimmer of hope, and i saw that the eyes of zimbabweans who now believe that after 37 years, they now have a real sense of change. what do you think happens tomorrow? is anyone talking about that, or is itjust an endless party? it is an endless party at the moment. those questions are being asked now that president robert mugabe has stepped down, who will take over? everybody knows that this stage that his sacked vice president and long—time ally emmerson mnangagwa will be sworn in as president and that will happen tomorrow or the day after. but at this stage zimbabweans are saying that they want to savour the moment and they don't want to think about what will happen tomorrow. thank you very much. as you've seen, zimbabwe is in party mode tonight. what can it be like for a leader to watch these scenes ofjubilation and reflect on how happy you've made your own people by going? mike thompson looks at what zimbabwe feels like tonight, and what the future may now hold.

the crowds had waited a long, long time for the news. and when it came, it was met by an outpouring ofjoy not seen in decades. after impeachment proceedings got underway, president robert mugabe's resignation letter was finally read to the house. cheering outside, some found it all too much to take in. i'm very happy. i don't have anything to say, but i'm happy with this. mugabe has... i don't have any words to say now. 37 years with one president, is doesn't make any sense. so this time it is a new era for us as a nation. we were tired of this man, we are so glad he has gone. we don't want him any more. and yes, today it is victory.

it is victory in our hearts. it is victory for our children. but how long will this euphoria continuing coverage will the man expected to replace mugabe, his former henchmen and vice president emmerson mnangagwa, sweep away oppression? is the nation simply swapping one tyrant for another? he has some skeletons in his cupboard as a former henchmen of mugabe. but we know he is more open to change double mugabe. he's also more open for western involvement. independence in 1980 promised much under a man who seemed to value democracy and human rights. as the years went by, repression through and zimbabwe evolved into a virtual i—party state. only mugabe's party, zanu—pf, is allowed to win elections. there is no room for opposition at the heart of

government. zanu—pf, there is no prime minister from anywhere else. the first thing we will see is whether there will be constitutional amendments to allow for that. given that the figure likely to be president initially at least has a reputation as a hard man, on used to compromise, such amendments might be hard to get. but some take the view that having finally got rid of mugabe after 37 long years, the momentum for change is now unstoppable. politicians, they all focus on power. but we will focus on them delivering on the issues that they promised, we will focus on delivering our rights. so, it's not going to be easy but right now, the people of zimbabwe have the confidence to stand up for their rights and to demand the right to be respected. few will be looking too far

into the future just now. in the coming days, it is more likely to be celebrations of the dawn of a new era which many thought might never come. the mugabe resignation came by letter, in mid—afternoon. just a few minutes later, i spoke to the opposition leader, morgan tsvangirai himself. the mdc leader contested mugabe in 2008, winning more votes than mugabe in the first round. but when he tried to claim the presidency, he encountered widepsread violence and intimidation by government supporters, and withdrew, offering instead to power—share with mugabe, which he eventually did, with limited success. i began by asking tsvangirai if it would open the door to real democracy in the country. one would hope that

it opens a new trajectory where people are respected and that the rule of law is restored. does that mean, then, that you will sit quietly by until august 2018? you won't press for free and fair elections before that date of august? absolutely not. my role is to ensure that the mdc has a role to play during these eight months that are there. the fact that this transition happened internally, zanu—pf passing from one leader to the next, suggests the opposition, your party, the mdc,

had no role to play at all? well, remember that this was not... yes, there was an internal zanu—pf factionalism. but remember that it is the military which intervened in that faction war. does that mean that zanu pf is united? far from it. what about mdc? you are the opposition party and yet you have seen this happen as bystanders? well, we're not the military. it is only the military which has taken an interventionist role. so, as far as we are concerned, our role will always be democratic. do you think it was a mistake for you to agree to support the mugabe government in 2008 after those elections? you wanted to go in and be part of that — looking back, was that a mistake? well, it was a strategic intervention.

our people were suffering and we needed to rescue the country. so, it was not a mistake. i don't regret it at all. if you ask zimbabweans, 85% of them did not care about mugabe, they cared about their welfare. and because of our intervention, we were able to rescue zimbabweans from a very dire situation that existed. and will you stand in the elections in august of 2018, do you want to be zimba bwe‘s next president? well, it's too early to tell. but definitely my party will decide and my alliance partners will decide whether i will be a candidate or not. what should happen to robert mugabe now, would you like to see him indicted for war crimes? no, i don't think so. i think to pursue the old man would be a futile exercise. i think let him go and rest his last days. so, you bear him no ill will?

no, i don't. i don't have any ill will at all. in fact, my call for him has always been, why don't you find a dignified exit? that is why zimbabweans have been pressurising him. and you have claimed that this is a victory for the army. zanu—pf has said it is not a coup. do you see it as a coup? no, but i've never said it is a victory for the army. i said the army intervened. but the people supported them. i don't want to get into arguments about was it a coup, was it not a coup. as far as the people are concerned, it's something that was desirable and maybe the means justifies the end. people will look back in years to come on this

day in november 2017. the tell them what this day means in history, the day that robert mugabe resigned? well, i'm sure that the people of zimbabwe will look back to this day with a hearty degree of nostalgia. because it's something that they have been wishing for for the last five years. but it's been very difficult to achieve because of the machinery that has been put to prevent it. so, like in any new birth, i think the celebration represents a new feeling. and i think it will go down like in 1980, when we got our independence, as a very memorable occasion. the opposition leader there saying mugabe should not be indicted for war crimes, and that he didn't know if he would ever stand again for president. so, where will the country wake up with its collective hangover? will zimbabwe seem like a new place tomorrow? joining me now are xavier zavare from robert mugabe's party, zanu—pf, the zimbabwean journalist

georgina godwin, and miles tendi, a zimbabwean writer and academic, who lectures at oxford university — but first our diplomatic editor mark urban. it does all seem incredibly peaceful and happy, this whole transition was ultimately smooth. but was it a takeover essentially bardiani? well, it's undoubtedly anything which sends shudders through many of the established powers that be throughout africa. we saw that in the african union statement that greeted the initial move by the military, very much against this idea of the military taking power. many people in the region worry about it, many people speculate about jacob zuma in south africa, how much he worries about it and the extent to which he tries to influence this transition, worrying about how it was going. i suppose all you can say from the point of view of somebody like jacob zuma is that the very things which are concerning to the opposition about the way this is happening, in other words, the crocodile emmerson mnangagwa is a creature of zanu—pf and the apparatus

which has engineered that, are things which will give him comfort in this situation. do you think this is easy for the international community, is there one clear line in terms of how they respond to this now? well, a fair bit of emphasis being put by foreign ministries around the world on the need for a move towards free and fair elections, that type of thing, the sort of thing you would expect them to say. —— but what i have to say that in a situation like this, where you've had so long under somebody in charge who is considered so undesirable and so difficult to get along with by the international community, everyone

will want to take advantage of this reset, even if he doesn't prove in the long run to be so different to president mugabe, they will want to deal with somebody that gives them a fresh chance to reset on trade, on tourism, and to take advantage of this moment. let's join our guests now. georgina, what does that mean for your life now? it is extraordinary, this is the one goal i have been working towards professionally all my life. i hardly remember a time without robert mugabe, he has influenced every sphere of my life and it is too big for words almost. have you spoken to family or friends back home? i have and they are absolutely elated as are my butt with a note of caution and i think that is something we all must be aware. it is important for us to celebrate and god knows we have had this coming for a long time but i do think this is our moment and we have

to seize the opportunity. i also think it is incredibly important to honour the people that got us to this point and perhaps even need a second wave of war veterans, to honour people in some way because so many people have suffered and the people in zimbabwe who did not eat today will not necessarily eat tomorrow. so when you said note of caution, what is that referring to? everyone involved with zanu pf in any way is somehow associated with everything robert mugabe did and can a leopard change its spots, we do not know but there is this window of opportunity. you have the international community watching and you have, you cannot put the genie back in the box, you have the people now who have tasted freedom and the army who for once did not have too oppressed people. why should anyone in zimbabwe now believe that emmerson mnangagwa

will be any different to the man who he governed alongside as vice president for all those years, xavier zavare? i think there is a reason to believe in emmerson mnangagwa in the sense that for the first time he will be able to come out of the shell and be himself. the emmerson mnangagwa we know is very pragmatic in terms of situations. he is also a good listener in terms of everyone he works around with. he worked, he worked alongside mugabe with the massacres, the corruption, why would he not back that government now? well he needs to have his own legacy away from robert mugabe and he will have to work very hard for that. and that is a source of comfort for me and source of belief that he will want to do very well and do things differently. even one of the challenges why he ran for his life was this argument behind the scenes

that he was having with mugabe. and miles, do you think that emmerson mnangagwa then becomes in charge of zimbabwe or is that the army pulling the strings question mark that is a good question and i would like to move beyond personalities, this was done by the army. i call them deep state, they will not go away and the important question to ask as well, when emmerson mnangagwa becomes president is is he really in charge or is it the army behind the scenes. that are running the show. you do not think he called on the army but the army called on him, a decision that came from the military? he may have called on the army but the military did the work. and in that sense he owes them. while he was away from the country the army did this. so they have a significant

hold of him. is that how zanu pf likes to see it now, that the army can bring him in, replacing, they may be calling the shots? i do not think our defence forces would like to operate that way. the evidence of what we've seen is that they have tried as much as they can with this intervention to let the government function, to make sure that the world understands it is not a cool. they're just helping out in a difficult situation. i do not think they would want to be seen continuing being involved, they willjust go back to their barracks and remain as professional as they have always been. do you sit back and think this is a change for zimbabwe, using the army in a very peaceful way? it is not a coup? that language had to be used in order not to stimulate regionalfight back.

but i think the army themselves, the rank and file where out there having selfies done with citizens, those are their brothers and sisters and i think the army now have had that taste of being part of the crowd, of all that joy and i think that cannot be stopped. i also think it is wonderful for us to be here together tonight because as morgan said in a speech earlier today we must go forward in hope and joy. and i think the only way forward is to say some terrible things happened, we acknowledge that and we have to move on and have some kind of unity. it is interesting how little recrimination is, i was amazed speaking to morgan tsvangirai that he did not want to talk about indictment or imprisonment. what happens now to mugabe? i do not think much will happen to him because the people who replaced him with the people... essentially he will be left to die an old man?

because the people who replaced him did his dirty work and if you bring him down that would bring them down as well. are there any mugabe supporters left in the country tonight, how does a man who has been held in power for 37 years suddenly have no wonder they're on the ground who supports him question what it is not necessary that he does not have supporters any more because many people still appreciate former president mugabe for what he did. of course we must accept that he also made mistakes in his later years but for what he did in the early years of independence, the education he introduced, and everything that he did for the black majority will always be remembered. but it happened quickly, not a telling off, was this a fear of grace mugabe? know i think what happened, mugabe did retain significant

support on the ground but because the process of his removal has been militarised, many of the mps who went out to cast the impeachment vote were told to do so by the army. they were worried that the wife would take over? all these quotes like democracy is not sexually transmitted and all these placards people held up in the streets. is this a misogyny, what kind of people can put up with a dictator who commits god knows what kind of atrocities for 30 years and more and then says no to the wife? zanu pf is an institution and it has a way of doing things and the way the wife was now doing things is contrary to what zanu pf has always been. everything that the wife was doing is against the principles that we believe in as zanu pf, against the constitution of the pf itself.

and you can get away with it if you are asked someone who has liberated the country but she did not and that was part of it. thank you all very much. well, tomorrow it's phillip hammond's turn to use long, economicky words. he may choose, however, to keep tomorrow's budget simple. his task is to ease austerity with what little money he has at his disposal. and to sound less gloomy about brexit than he may be feeling. the chancellor will announce an education package of around £177 million to promote maths skills — part of a drive towards productivity and learning — as well as a little bit more for teacher training. perhaps the hardest challenge for the government right now is working out how to bring young people, voting in their droves for corbyn at the last election, into the conservative fold. here's chris cook. as we've got closer and closer to finding out what's in the chancellor's red box, it's become clearer and clearer that the space he has to wield it

has shrunk and shrunk. his last budget in march was hardly a giveaway to begin with. since then, though, his options haven't improved. economists worry in particular about something that they refer to as "head rooom". that's the term they give to the amount of money that the chancellor has on hand without needing to raise taxes that can be put towards spending increases or tax cuts or coping with unforeseen events. the problem that philip hammond has going into this budget is that the amount of head room he thought he has has been massively decreased. this former obr economist explains what's happened. the single biggest problem that the chancellor is facing is that productivity is not growing as fast as it once did. we're not getting more efficient at producing things and this means the economy is going to grow more slowly in the future than it has

in the past. and this means there will be less money to spend because tax revenue will be slower as well. productivity is a long—term problem. back in 2010 the obr had to forecast what they thought would happen to it and so they assumed it would just rise. but it didn't. this is where we were by late 2013. productivity growth had stalled. and what did the obr forecast say then? well, it predicted productivity growth was just around the corner. but it wasn't. this is where we thought we were at this last march budget. the forecast once again was, it's just about to take off. and guess what, that was wrong, too. with big consequences for the chancellor. the chancellor has a target. and last time at the budget he had about £26 billion of head room against that target in the year 2020 — 2021. now because growth is slower, this means he has much less head

room against that target, probably only around £13 billion. £13 billion of head room is a lot of money, but it could easily be eaten by future downgrades. and a large slug of it could go into one public spending line in particular. the government has already pencilled in 2.5 billion extra cash for the nhs next year. but that really is just to keep in line with inflation. we estimate that on top of that the nhs will need another 4 billion. and that is to keep up with the demand for nhs services, so effectively the increasing level of patients coming in to the system. last week simon stephens, the nhs england chief executive, called for vote leave‘s promises of extra nhs cash to be honoured. by the end of the next financial year for the nhs, march 2019, the united kingdom will have left the european union. trust in democratic politics will not be strengthened if anyone now tries to argue, you voted brexit

partly for a betterfunded health service, but precisely because of brexit, you now can't have one. without extra money, the health and social care system faces further degradation in care quality and waiting times. but the chancellor's slim room for manoeuvre means it will be hard for him to find very much nhs cash without tax rises. nick watt has had his nose to the ground much of the week. what are you sniffing out? this is one of the key moment since the general election and philip hammond tomorrow must reach out to those under the age of 50 who preferred labour. but it got off to a scrappy start, one of the dullest press releases ever previewing the budget, talking about was all to embrace change was a vastly less exciting than the quite interesting interviews philip hammond did

at the weekend on bbc and the sunday times and then two hours later a more interesting press release, talking about a £112 million investment in teacher training in deprived areas and £177 million investment in the maths teaching for the treasury sources said that there will be plums tomorrow and you heard from chris cook about how the chancellor has little room for manoeuvre. there is a feeling that things have looked a bit better in the last month or so, the eurozone bouncing up which is good for the uk and that will help tax revenues and productivity which was looking dreadful now ticking up a little bit. more broadly where is he going on spending? the key thing is this head room. he had £26 billion in march and now just below £10 billion. what is interesting is that because this is the first fiscal event since the general election, this will make in what was a change

at the general election so in the general election the tories said they would balance the budget with no deficit by the middle of the next decade. before that at the time of the autumn statement it was 21, 22 so what that does is give the chancellor another three or four years to spend the difference between what is the borrowing target of 2% of national income by the end of the decade and the balance of the budget, spending the difference between 2% and 0% for three orfour years. budgets by their very nature tweak and tease — one constituency of people feel a little better, another a little worse. but what if we need to radically reshape our economy into something that picks up the disenfranchised in our society? those who, bluntly put, sometimes barely have enough to eat. we report tonight from

middlesbrough, and from a part of that town where house prices are amongst the lowest in the country — £49,000 on average in 2017, having fallen by 47% since 2007. i've lived here for 15 years. the area's just gone down. loads of gangs round here, and just the community, it's not how it used to be. the house prices are, like, going down in this area. there's not that much increase in wages. so, people, like the general public's buying power has gone down. you run out of cash, you run out of food. and that's the end of it. it makes me feel a bit sad, because i know i'm leaving in a week. and it's been my home

for, like, 1a years. so, i do feel like a bit of an ending is coming, really. so, i've had my house up for sale for a while, i'm wanting to move because the area has gone really downhill and is quite deprived now. and property, houses, are dropping quite rapidly. well, you don't need that. all right, bin that. we've got people who are dealing drugs on the street, there's a lot more different cultured people and with different morals, different... erm, nobody working, people up all night play music loud. and my house has been burgled and i don't particularly feel safe any more when i live by myself on this street. you don't need sun lotion.

no, but it's brand—new that, i don't want to bin it. keep it for next year. it's just when she rings me at night time and says there's a fight outside the door. she's scared and i just say stay in and lock the door. i can't even say come to my house because she wouldn't dare go outside. i have a good wage, i make a lot of extra money that either gets took off me in tax. i also have then that increase that the government takes more off me in pension. more off me in student loan. and all my other bills leave me with not very much money. i do like to have a good life and to do nice things with my friends, to travel, to go out for meals. but i can't always keep up with everyone because ijust can't afford it. the business, it's quite a few

reasons, the corner shops are going down and down every year. everybody is asking like cheaper, cheaper stuff, do you sell cheap bread? if somebody comes in, do you sell any cheap cigarettes? when are you moving, then? so, i'm moving next wednesday. have you sold the house? i've nearly sold it, it's under offer, but i'm just hoping, because if it falls through then i don't know what i'm going to do. it's very hard to sell the properties over here. i've got the house over the road and i put the lodgers in, i haven't received the rent since last four months. that's terrible. and i'm struggling now. you can't afford it, can you? no. four months i haven't received anything yet. i work seven days. and about 13 to 14 hours a day. and if you count the hours over the week or month, i don't have any break. for years and years. at the end of the day i don't even get minimum wage. how long can you work for 14 hours a day and all week? i think nobody does. you can't. no. and it's only me. i'm constantly thinking about money, i'm constantly doing spreadsheets to work out how i'm going to pay my bills.

i'm always on the phone setting up payment plans, asking for help with stuff. and i'm quite a proud person, and i don't like that. the community has gone down, hasn't it? it's not the same any more. i'm just hanging my coat up. i would never let him out at all. what happened the other week? you said you got robbed? well, there was two bikes outside. and the thieves must have pushed the gate. right. does it feel safe round here at night? no. when the food runs out, i'll start crying and then i'll ask my daughter, hopefully she'll have something for me,

01’ my son. my eldest son. at the moment, struggling a lot. with being on universal credit, erm, and the way they actually deal with you. it's all over the phone or online, job coaches. since 2008, i lost a lot of my family through bereavement, and that's what caused my depression and anxiety. and i've been on a downward spiral ever since, basically. i am struggling, to be fair. just love to work. to... just to get a better life for him.

erm... you know, better schooling, better whatever. but at the moment with me, i can't because i have to care for him. i'm his carer — as well as his parent, i'm his carer. so, it's very difficult. just want a nicer life for my son round here. well, not round here per se, but somewhere nice. nic-er. nicer environment, nicer area. i never ask for help, i never have done, never will. but now i think it's coming to that stage where i do need help. so... and i need to ask for it, really. i worked all my life since the age of 16.

erm... to not work now is... basically i feel it's the end of my life now. i feel like it's over. a lot of the time i just want to lie down, i prefer not to wake up when i go to sleep on a night. but i do. and i'm a survivor and i keep fighting. and keep going. but it's not nice, it's not. i haven't got the motivation. i want to go back to work. i really do, because i can't live like this. i don't know how people have done it for years, i really don't. it's really bad. let's pick up some of those concerns with torsten bell, from the resolution foundation, a think—tank. and when you look at that kind of struggle, weather it's a woman talking about food running out or someone saying they have never had to ask for help but then again i have to now.

the shopkeeper talking about those 14 hour days on less than the minimum wage — is there anything the chancellor can start to do tomorrow that addresses trouble is on that scale? obviously, hearing the stories brings to life some of the statistics you see about the cost of living crisis and how people feel in britain today. but the big picture over quite some years is that britain's population as a whole, notjust the extreme end of this, are in a serious living standards squeeze the likes of which none of us have seen in living memory. and at the lower end of the income distribution that is felt very severely, people being squeezed who already have very little income and people being pushed into the summer the situations we heard about there. that is when some people say this is an unprecedented period in british history for people at the heart end of that it is really severe. because there's so much emphasis on the house—building side

of things, on theresa may wanting to be remembered as the builder and yet if you take many parts of the country, notjust middlesbrough, house prices declining there, there is even marry oversupply there. the problem of the lack of housing is very much in the south of england? we need to be careful about that. what is technically true is that we are focusing on what will raise living standards in different parts of the country. so in birmingham it's about unemployment and a labour market disaster. in sheffield it's low pay. in london it is acutely housing. but let's be clear, housing is a problem right across the country. if we look at how much of our income as a population we are spending on housing, it has troubled over the last 50 years. housing is a problem everywhere, homeownership is falling in the north—east, not as fast as it is in parts of london but it is falling. and housing costs have

risen very significantly, even in the north—east as a whole. what about the whole idea of right to buy, in that case? on housing the problem has been building at least since the 19th 80s and it is a disgrace that we haven't focused on that. we put up with it because house prices were rising and we put up with it because homeownership was still high and incomes were growing. now, we've got falling homeownership and incomes being squeezed. this is where the government has pledged to put their attention and their money now. but the problem politically, if you will allow, for the chancellor tomorrow, is how to pull in all these young people that don't find the conservatives a very sexy brand any more, if they did. and how does he do that? it's not going to be through rail cards, is it? it's not going to be through... the rail cards are no use either politically or substantively. they may be a nice thing to have. the bigger picture with young people

today, substantively, is not just that they can't get a house, the problem is that their wages ask wheat in a way that we've not seen, they had a 9% pay squeeze during the financial crisis, more than any other age group. we've seen the fastest rising housing costs and is now getting less for that. addressing that is what substantively the chancellor needs to do, and actually that will matter politically. it will show young people that he is focusing on their concerns and secondly weather you are young or not you know that this intergenerational question is a big question facing the country. grandparents and parents want these problems are addressed for the sake of the country notjust for the sake of the young people. these are not normal times. is there anything you're expecting the chancellor to do tomorrow? will it be rolling back universal credit, will it be something dramatic, pushing that whole idea away, which will...? what the chancellor should do is get on with building houses. he should reverse the cuts to benefits which are coming over

the next few years which will hit young people in their 30sjust as they are entering the expensive early childcare phase of their lives. that might start looking like we're focusing on real problems. thank you very much for coming in. that's all we've got time for this evening, but before we go, seasoned newsnight viewers will know that some of the most effective politicians are able to pivot, seamlessly, from the topic you ask them about to the topic they really want to talk about. thatcher, mandelson, clegg, they all did it. but we think australian mp bob katter might have taken it a bit far when asked about the country's recent referendum on equal marriage. good night. final, final observation on the same—sex marriage debate from bob katter. i mean, you know, people are entitled to their sexual proclivities, you know! i mean, let there be a thousand blossoms bloom, as far as i'm concerned! but i ain't spending any time on it, because in the meantime, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in north queensland. hello there. the really cold air is

still to arrive. most of us will be starting quite mild on wednesday morning. windy weather developing across england and wales and more rain coming back into northern ireland, across wales, northern england, into central and southern scotland. a lot of rain in the hills, camera, south—west scotland, and the north—west of wales. added that, windy conditions developing for england and wales. milder air to the north in scotland. that trend is still around in the evening and into the night. some squalls of rain could come in. then some snow arrives later in the night and continues and it morning. some bands

of showers moved to the south—western china between. cold air, notjust for south—western china between. cold air, not just for scotland, south—western china between. cold air, notjust for scotland, but also northern ireland in northern england. much milder for a northern ireland in northern england. much milderfor a time in the south. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore, the headlines: cheering zimbabwe celebrates as the country's president of 37 years, robert mugabe, resigns. today is victory — it's victory in our hearts, it's victory for our children... robert mugabe's surprise resignation announcement was made by letter, just as proceedings to impeach him were getting started. i'm babita sharma in london. the ruling zanu—pf party say, emmerson mnangagwa, the man sacked as vice—president, will be sworn in as mugabe's replacement. and in other news — north korea's shipping operations and some chinese firms are targeted

in the latest us sanctions against pyongyang.