sailors from the royal navy have been performing the famous changing the guard ceremony outside buckingham palace in london for the first time in its 350 year history. the ceremony involves one set of guards, the old guard, handing over the responsibility of protecting buckingham palace and st james‘s palace to another set of guards, the new guard. the manoeuvres are usually carried out by a regiment from the army, as our correspondent jane—frances kelly explains. people from all around the world, witnessed this historic event, the royal navy, for the first time, undertook the ceremonial duties, normally undertaken by one of five footguards regiments, that form part of the army's household division. lieutenant commander steve elliott is believed to be the first captain of the queen ‘s guard for the royal navy since sir walter raleigh, during the reign of elizabeth first. he explained why they are undertaking these duties now. great opportunity for the royal navy in what has been termed

the year of the royal navy, a capstone to everything we have had, and coinciding with the formal commissioning of hms queen elizabeth. my team have worked really hard to get ready for it, not something we are traditionally famous for, marching, in the navy, but the guys have worked really hard and we hope to put on a good show. able seaman alex stacy, who only joined the service injanuary, said it was an extremely proud moment. i onlyjoined up injanuary, i finished all of my training injuly, so it is still very new in the navy, so it is a great honour and privilege to be able to do something like this. and they will be undertaking further duties at stjames‘ palace, the tower of london,

and, tomorrow, at windsor castle. after a weekend of sitting in cold northerly winds and arctic air, we have something milder coming in from the atlantic, but only really overnight tonight and first thing tomorrow. we have westley and north—westerly winds. wet and windy conditions to content with. in northern ireland, rain for wales overnight and then to the south for the first thing on monday. difficult conditions for morning rush—hour. these temperatures are higher at night and they have been through gender day. brightening up during

the afternoon, showers coming in on the afternoon, showers coming in on the northerly wind. to the south temperatures healthier than they have been in recent days. but again things starting to turn chilly to the north. it is a very brief mild speu the north. it is a very brief mild spell as that weather front dies off into the continent it takes the murk adair with it and opens it up to cold airfrom adair with it and opens it up to cold air from the arctic for the rest of the week again. hello, this is bbc news with shaun ley, the headlines. five people — including three children — have been killed after a stolen car struck a tree in leeds. two boys aged 15 are in custody. the international trade secretary, liam fox, has said the future of the irish border cannot be resolved until the united kingdom and the eu have reached a trade agreement. he rejected a suggestion by the irish government that the uk may have to stay inside the single market or the eu customs union to avoid a return to border controls between the republic and northern ireland. drone users will have to register and sit safety awareness tests as part of plans

to regulate their use. the police will also gain new powers to crack down on illegal and irresponsible drone flying. now on bbc news, it's time for witness. hello and welcome to witness with me, tanya beckett. i'm here at the british library to guide you through another five extraordinary moments from the recent past. we'll meet the government official tasked with solving one of ethiopia's worst ever famines. the widow of a former russian spy assassinated by the kgb.

and one of the showgirls from london's windmill theatre. but first we go back to the soviet union in 1957 and a stray dog called laika who was the first animal ever to orbit the earth. professor victor yazdovsky‘s father was the medical officer who looked after laika. archive: the world's first real space pioneer was a dog. a russian husky called laika. the russians sent sputnik the second into orbit around the world with laika as passenger. months of training, sometimes with a companion, prepared laika for her lonely journey. translation: she was a very patient dog, very affectionate, she was very easy to train. she was considered very clever, she had very expressive, dark eyes. my father wanted to take her away from the official environment of the lab and brought her home

to run around with us and play. in 1957, i was nine and my father was in charge of the soviet medical programme to send animals into space. i remember that very often a car would arrive from my father's lab, it would signal, "beep, beep," a door would open and a crowd of dogs would tumble out of it. they were full of life. they would run to us, start licking us. and then a command was given. they were well trained. they went back to the car and were driven back to the labs. all dogs that were launched into space had to weigh not more than 6—7kg. they were all stray dogs.

they had stamina and were un—demanding. they were naturally selected by their life from the streets. in order to study laika's blood pressure and monitor her pulse during the flight, my father pulled her main artery close to the surface of her skin. a transmitter was then attached to the artery. more transmitters were attached to her ribs and neck. archive: laika's elliptical orbit varies from 100 to 1,000 miles above the earth's surface, where observatories listen eagerly for coded radio signals which tell the space scientists how laika is standing up to her lonely journey. without knowing it, laika is telling man weather in the years to come it will be safe for him to follow her. translation: it was the 40th anniversary of the revolution in 1957, and they needed to make a push before the festivities. that's why not everything could be thought through in this

flight preparation. khrushchev was the soviet communist party leader then and he needed to show americans who was first. everyone was very concerned for laika. they knew she would not return from her journey. scientists then did not know how to return living creatures from orbit back to earth. after ten hours, she died because of the very high temperature in her capsule. the system of thermoinsulation of her capsule had not been properly developed. in memory of this remarkable flight, special stamps and envelopes were produced with laika's image. there were also special cigarettes and matches in the ussr called laika. the monument was unveiled in moscow in 2008.

laika's flight show that you could survive weightlessness and the door was opened for man's travel into space. professor victor yazdovsky there talking to witness in moscow. next, in the autumn of 1984, ethiopia was hit by one of the worst famines in its history. dawit giorgis was the government officer in charge of the relief effort. famine was notjust in ethiopia, for centuries people had been facing recurring problems of famine but the 1984 famine was different because of the magnitude of the problem. it covered almost one third of the population and it was complicated by the politics of the times. the world in the 1970s and the 1980s was a world divided into two ideologies,

the capitalist world and the world of the communists, headed by the soviet union. what we now know of the cold war, ethiopia at that time was in the communist camp. i was assigned to be the chief relief and rehabilitation commission. every day there was a funeral, every day hundreds of people were dying. these were my own people, i could have been one of them. i felt the pain, their pain. the government was celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ethiopian revolution and our own government wasn't even willing to acknowledge that there was famine in ethiopia. they did not want to report anything negative, ten years of absolute success. the turning point with this kind of tragedy first was the footage by the bbc. my office invited them. they claim of course without the knowledge of the government. archive: dawn, and as the sun breaks

through the piercing chill of night on the plane outside korem, it lights up a biblical famine, now in the 20th century. this place, say workers here, is the closest thing to hell on earth. 15,000 children here now suffering, confused, lost. it took this kind of footage to mobilise the conscience of the world. it did work miracles. in london, the minister of overseas development said the prime minister, margaret thatcher, is willing to send the royal air force full of goods but that was a very difficult question for me because in a country ruled by a marxist government, how can we allow the royal air force to come to ethiopia? i started talking to my government, the government said no, that pricked my conscience, i said how can we be seen to be refusing assistance when people

are dying in ethiopia? i said go ahead, you can take the royal air force. it was the first western air force that arrived in ethiopia with help. it was difficult, but the aid came. the ethiopia totaliser is absolutely staggering. it really is marvellous news and we can't say a big enough thankyou. that experience has strengthened my faith in humanity. people who just were moved by what they saw on the screen could respond so generously. band aid became one of the most successful fundraising campaigns in history. dawit giorgis now lives in namibia. now, in november, 2006, in what seemed like a story straight from the pages of a cold war

thriller, a former colonel in the russian secret service was murdered in london. alexander litvinenko had been poisoned with the highly radioactive substance polonium 210. his wife, marina, told witness why she thinks her husband was targeted. scotland yard is investigating the suspected poisoning of a russian dissident living in britain. alexander litvinenko, once a colonel in the russian security service, now he's fighting for his life. when i met him first time i didn't think it's my future husband. he was very shy, he was absolutely different to what you usually think about officer of security service. i feel very safe with him.

i feel loved. sasha's life belongs to serving for the country. he went to the army when he was just 17 years old. he joined the headquarters exactly at the time when the soviet union collapsed and hisjob was more against organised crime. the growth in crime also affects those who have done well out of change. a bullet—proof car with a team of bodyguards take this top banker to work. it was a crazy time. people tried to earn money in any different way. when organised crime, people from security service, people from government started to co—operate together, and this is not for better future of this country, it's not better for the people, it's just for themselves. mr litvinenko spent the last decade taking on the kremlin. he first broke ranks with his old bosses in 1998

when he claimed he'd been ordered to murder the russian tycoon boris berezovsky. when he told me they were going to this press conference i was already very very nervous and i said, are you sure you have to do this? sasha said, i have no choice, we need to be very noisy to say what we know about this crime. he said, marina, you need to travel abroad. i said why, why do i need to go? he said you have to. the doll might we decided to go to london. we asked for political asylum. 0n the first of movember he had lunch with an italian contact in a japanese restaurant in central london. 0n the same day he met two russian contacts in a london hotel. hours later he began to feel ill. he could hardly walk. in hospital they said can you check me for poisoning. they looked at us like we are crazy people, why do we need to do this? sasha explained, i'm a former

officer from russia and i have very powerful enemies. and then i saw all his hair on his shoulder, on his pillow, and then ijust grabbed his head and i saw all hair in my gloves. i was shocked. he looked like after chemotherapy. for somebody to have this level of radiation, they would have to have either eaten it, inhaled it or taken it in through a wound. which of those it was we don't know. when sasha opened his eyes he was looking very upset. i said don't worry, sasha, i'll be back tomorrow. suddenly he said, "marina, i love you so much." the system what was built in russia

killed not only my husband, so many people were killed, because everything what happened in russia now, it's about money. he believed hisjob, it's for people. probably why i liked this about sasha, this feeling, it's not only his duty, it's his passion. even though sasha's not here, he's still part of me. marina litvinenko and her son still live in london. remember, you can watch witness every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on all of our films, along with more than 1000 radio programmes in our online archive. just go to: we turn to 1964 when the windmill

theatre in london's red light district soho closed its doors. it had become a national institution because for a long time it was one of the few places in britain it was possible to see naked women on stage. that particular blend of glamour and tattiness, sweat and eau de cologne. something seedy and yet touching and innocent... it was a national institution. there was nowhere else like it. there never can be. whatever it was, it has a great story. it was by accident. i was walking along archer street and i saw the sign saying ‘windmill theatre stage door‘. so i walked in, i don't know why,

and i said to the stage door man, "can i have an audition please"? and so he phoned upstairs to the office and i was sent upstairs and vivian van damm didn't audition me, but he said, "i like you, i'm going to take a chance on you". what he didn't know was i was 14 and a half years old. and he signed the contracts and then realised my age and told me to go home and come back when i was 15 and a half, so i did. i didn't realise it was naughty. looking back on it, i think, yes, it was! the windmill was non—stop review. it was called revudeville, so it was a review theatre, with nudes. we did six shows a day. once you bought your first ticket, that was it, so the audience could sit there all day. # now when you first get

up in the morning...#. siren blares the proudest years of the windmill were during second world war. it allowed nothing to interfere. we were the only west end theatre open throughout the london blitz. really brave girls who stood there while the bombs landed all around them. the house manager came out onto the stage, stopped the show and asked the audience if they wanted the performance to continue. almost every time the answer was yes. one of the most important things, and the thing the audience would come to see, is the nude posers at the back of the stage. it was the obscenity laws and you were not allowed to move in the nude on a london stage or any stage in the country. it was censorship. you can't be sexy if you stand still. 0h, idunno! so the lord chamberlain‘s office...

..they‘d come very happily. they were very pleased to come to the shows and say, "mm, no, that's a bit too much. "no, you can't say that." but they always tipped us off when they were on their way. 1964. by then soho had changed a lot, with all the strip clubs. our little friend miss fifi la boom boom was three streets away. where we weren't allowed to move, she could shake it all about as much as she liked, so we lost a lot of the audience. people who perhaps wanted to see more, they could go to the clubs, whereas we were still a theatre and we felt it was better to close while we were still respected, than to even attempt to change. and the girls wouldn't have done it. so we closed, with our heads held high. jill millard shapiro later wrote a book about her

experiences at the windmill. and, finally, in 1967, construction began on a prestigious architectural project in lebanon. but the tripoli international fair, designed by legendary brazilian architect 0scar niemeyer, was never finished due to the outbreak of the lebanese civil war. architect wassim naghi spoke to witness about the modernist masterpiece. as kids, we used to climb the framework of the concrete. 0nce finished, i still remember the dome, the experimental theatre, we used to use it as a giant slide and climb it to the top. it's like an oasis, a concrete oasis. i could see it resembling a womb, with an unborn baby inside of it. the financial comparison of lebanon to switzerland and its role as a trading hub in the middle east isa fairone. in the middle of the 20th century, all the surrounding countries,

like syria and turkey and iraq, all of them had their permanent international fair. modern roads cover the country. luxury buildings and hotels have sprung up. the lebanese government, when lebanon was living its golden age, had the thought of establishing this facility as an essential economic factor. 0scar niemeyer was already famous because he was working with many international architects. he was participating in many international competitions. he was, at that time, he was a legend. the construction didn't start until 1967. the time estimated for the completion was almost like two to three years, maximum, yet it didn't get completed until 1974. but yet it was completed like 95%. we have the experimental theatre, which is a dome. another theatre is the open air theatre. the exhibition place, like a boomerang shape.

0ne space museum, which could function as a helipad. all these buildings are joined together with a big plate of reflective pool that should contain water of like 15 centimetres depth. that requires the construction of the water tank. in lebanon, fierce fighting has been going on in and around beirut... unfortunately, during 1975, we had the start of the civil war in lebanon and that was the sign of stopping everything and the fair was abandoned for some time. all these buildings, which were commissioned and ready to operate, never had the chance to operate for a single event. the fair was the target for all the militias to be occupied by the army and all these groups. many stolen pieces have been taken

out, the power generators, the windows, with the floor tiles were dismantled and taken out. a lot of stories about executing people on the wall of this building, the administration building. you can still see the traces of the bullets on the wall, but it wasn't confirmed because no one had the accessibility to check to see if it was a military area. it's not far from the seaside, not more than 300 metres, which is a very aggressive climate condition for the concrete. and despite being neglected for decades during the civil war and after the civil war, these concrete structures remain resisting for all of the factors which should be affecting. tripoli was lucky to have this project in the heart of the city, but the project was unlucky for being in tripoli. what is the future of these monuments? what is the suitable function? what are the possibilities?

if we are waiting to decide, the monuments won't be waiting. wassim naghi, speaking to witness from the niemeyer international fairsite, in tripoli. that's all for witness this month, from the british library, in london. join me again next month when we bring you five more accounts of extraordinary moments in history. but, for now, from me and from the rest of the witness team, bye—bye. hello. some briefly milder but wet and windy weather on the way for the british isles overnight to night. here is the weather system that is packing all of that in. we will see the rain and strong winds arriving into northern ireland and scotland $0011 into northern ireland and scotland soon after dusk. some snow also to be scottish mountains. the system clears through to bring heavy rain into england and wales only small hours and then across southern england by the end of the night. a

much milder night and we have been used to. could be patchy frost across scotland. and a risk of ice. generally, the most lively weather on monday will come courtesy of this weather front with some heavy bursts of rain embedded in it as it stretches across southern england for the morning rush—hour. there could be some ethical conditions south of the m4, that mild. temperatures in double figures. cloudy for midlands and east anglia. showers for northern ireland and north and west scotland. we could see some wintry ones in the north and we will still have ice strong wind. that front gets out of the way in the south into the channel by lunchtime, things should start to brighton for the afternoon. we will continue with some showers for the north and west exposures, temperatures in the south in double figures on monday. that is the first time we have seen that in a while and probably the last time as we look further into the week ahead.

the murk adair with this only briefly. 0nce the murk adair with this only briefly. once the weather frankly is into the continent we open the doors to the cold air coming down from the arctic once again for tuesday. there isa arctic once again for tuesday. there is a weather front going to the continent, though pressure to the east, high pressure to the west, and north to south, the air across the british isles. tuesday, plenty of showers for eastern coasts, some significant snow across the north york moors. plenty of rain, a few from pembrokeshire and the southwest two. sunshine as well, but it will feel chilly. frosty nights, ecole stuck to wednesday. a chilly start for many, windy in the east and a fair few for many, windy in the east and a fairfew showers. again, they for many, windy in the east and a fair few showers. again, they could be wintry on higher ground. scattered showers for wales and the south—west of ingram. this is your week ahead, briefly milder but only briefly on monday. then we're back into a cold regime with a biting lovely wind. —— northerly. this is bbc news. the headlines at five: two teenage boys are in custody after five people died when a stolen car hit

a tree in leeds. the international trade secretary, liam fox, says the future of the irish border can't be resolved until the uk and eu reach a trade agreement. dangerous drones — owners will have to register and sit safety tests under new plans. a red alert to airlines over the plume of ash from a volcano on the island of bali. also in the next hour... they‘ re changing guard at buckingham palace. sailors perform the famous ceremony for the first time in history as part of a year—long celebration of the royal navy. and cricket — australia are on the verge of victory at the end of day four in the first ashes test in brisbane.