this is bbc news, the headlines. anti—government protesters have taken to the streets across iran in the country's most serious show of dissent for years. thousands demanded an end to corruption, rising prices and the release of political prisoners. authorities have warned that the demonstrators will be firmly dealt with. new york's fire department says a fire which killed 12 people was caused by a toddler playing with burners on a stove. investigators say the kitchen door was then left open, allowing the blaze to spread. four people remain critically injured in hospital. china has clashed with donald trump over accusations that it's helping break sanctions against north korea. the us president tweeted that china had been caught "red—handed" allowing oil to be transferred to a north korean ship. beijing says the allegations don't conform with the facts. now on bbc news, rachel horne looks back at the big business stories

this year, and asks what we can expect in the coming 12 months in review 2017: the business year. it was a year of crucial negotiations. no dealfor britain is better than a bad dealfor britain. we would all love to have europe a la carte! and a year of bold promises in the world's largest economy. and i can think of no better christmas present for the american people than giving you a massive tax cut. it was a year where some of the world's most influential companies hit a bump in the road. the taxi app uber will not have its licence renewed by transport for london. it says the firm is not fit and proper to operate. but others defied the critics to post record—breaking results. welcome to review 2017:

a year in business. we have all that to come, but we are starting here in westminster, the home of the british government, where big ben isn't the only thing under construction. what about that brexit deal? back in march, the uk prime minister, theresa may, triggered article 50, and negotiations began. shoulder to shoulder — but not eye to eye. just two years to negotiate britain's departure from the eu. but brussels would not even begin trade negotiations before sorting out three key issues — the irish border, the divorce bill and the rights of eu migrants living in the uk. the clock was ticking and it was making businesses nervous. rain newton—smith is the chief economist at the lobby group which represents businesses here in britain. there are serious questions

about how prepared we were. it has been challenging for business and led to confusion, we have not had clear leadership across the cabinet. and in a sense i think it was helpful to have the florence speech where the prime minister set out what the government was hoping to achieve, but sometimes we have seen the cabinet not always united behind that position. with no clarity on the uk's future trading relationship with the european union, some sectors started to trigger their contingency plans. the big service sector that was affected, or thought it might be affected, by this article 50 process was, of course, financial services. britain has a big trade surplus with the rest of the european union on financial services — so banking, for example, a huge amount of trade in the european union, a lot of trade from the european union into london, london is the financial capital of europe. those sectors that are most intertwined with europe were those that were most concerned.

uncertainty was rife, but there were further complications to come. i have just chaired a meeting with the cabinet, where we have agreed that the government should call a general election to be held on the 8th ofjune. the conservative party thought this would give them a bigger majority in parliament, and a stronger hand going into negotiations with the eu. the gamble didn't pay off. big ben chimes. and what we are saying is, the conservatives are the largest party — note they don't have an overall majority at this stage. in the past half—hour, the prime minister has apologised to colleagues after losing her parliamentary majority and having to depend on support from the democratic unionists. i obviously wanted a different result last night, and i am sorry for all those colleagues

who lost their seats, who didn't deserve to lose, and of course i'll reflect on what happened. it is a hung parliament. so the conservatives have 309 seats, labour 258, there's no way the conservatives can go to 326... sterling was already significantly down against the dollar following the brexit vote, then injune it took another hit of more than 2% after theresa may's government lost its majority. the fall in sterling raised the cost of imports and led to a steep rise in prices. with inflation above target, the uk's central bank was forced to take an unprecedented step. so for the first time in a decade, the bank of england raised rates. so the really extraordinary period we had of cheap money that started with the financial crisis was coming to an end. raising rates after ten years for a whole generation of borrowers is quite significant thing, when you think

about the implications, particularly on mortgage rates and borrowings like that. so a small step in absolute terms, but very much the first of a journey. this year, the big story has been around two numbers — firstly that inflation number, which is 3.1%, and the other important number for how people experience the economy is the increase in incomes, and they have only been increasing at 2.3%. that gap has created this living—standards squeeze, real incomes are actually falling. inflation affects us all, because that means higher prices, and that our wages go less far. with inflation above target and brexit uncertainty weighing on businesses, growth forecasts were revised down by several organisations, including the international monetary fund and the government's own independent economists. but in december, a breakthrough. there would be no hard border for northern ireland, britain and the eu had come

to sufficient agreement on the three separation issues, and talks could move on to trade. i think the agreements that we came to in december has increased confidence, that at least progress is being made, and it has probably given business a better understanding of how we are going to leave the european union. at least, there is now a deal on the money that britain will pay into the european union, on citizens' rights, i think the one big area where there is still concern is over the irish border. the only land border between the united kingdom and northern ireland and the republic of ireland. and the fact is, the british government has said it wants that border to remain open. how will we do that, if we are going to leave the customs union and the single market? that is the big challenge now, what type of relationship will we have with the rest of the european union in order to be able to keep that frictionless trade going, which is what theresa may has said she wants?

i think what businesses want to see as soon as possible in 2018 is a time—limited transition agreement, and then it's about being clear around what our final relationship will be with the eu, getting a good agreement on our trading relationship that works across all sectors and all regions of the uk. and then it is certainly about people and having clear guarantees for eu citizens who are here and contributing to our economy, but also for uk citizens who are working abroad, we have made good progress on that in 2017, but we need to go a lot further on that. brexit and the general election made a pretty eventful 2017 here in the uk, and across the atlantic in the us, they have been dealing with their own unexpected political results. at the beginning of the year, billionaire donald trump took control of the white house, and he had some pretty bold ideas about the future of the world's largest economy.

2017 started off with a major political shift in washington. the election of us president donald trump took many by surprise, including us markets. jitters were felt across the board at the prospect of a president with very little political experience. but the day after his election, stocks were trading higher, because of mr trump's campaign promises. the market has stormed up based on tax reform and infrastructure, those have been the two drivers. so if we can get those in place, maybe the market can finally settle and justify some of the valuations. it was the legislative promises of this administration that brought some of the euphoria on us markets, breaking records 70 times this year alone. but in terms of actual laws on the books, tax reform has only

just made it to the president's desk, squeaking in at the tail end of 2017. we have created 2.2 million jobs since the election, unemployment is at a 17—year low, the unemployment rate in the manufacturing business is the lowest in recorded history. consumer confidence is a 17—point high, pensions and retirement accounts are soaring, as the stock market hit 85 new record highs since the election. how are we doing? are we doing 0k? not bad, right? the us economy has also had consecutive quarters of 3% growth. but how much credit can the president take for what has happened this year? some would argue, not very much. the current administration has inherited a rather strong economy. the economy has been chugging along through 2017 and even 2016,

and we think president trump is very lucky in that he has been able to inherit such a relatively nice economy. how does the president plan on keeping the us economy on this path of growth? 0ne assumption is that giving corporations big tax cuts will create jobs. but earlier this year at an event with white house chief economic adviser gary cohn, ceos in the audience were asked what they would do with the money they would no longer be putting towards taxes. if the tax reform bill goes through, do you plan to increase investment, your compa ny‘s capital investment? just a show of hands, if the tax reform goes through. why aren't the other hands up? well, so much for that theory. and the tax bill comes with other problems. this tax package is not debt—neutral. you are looking at maybe about $400 billion in economic activity

generated from the package, but it will cost close to $1.5. that means for every dollar spent by the us government, we are only getting 30 cents back. if you're counting accomplishments, the president was handed a healthy economy and has onlyjust now been able to pass a tax bill. but there is something that contributed to us growth this year that the president can take credit for. within our first 11 months, we cancelled or delayed over 1500 planned regulatory actions, more than any previous president by far. under the trump administration, the environmental protection agency has rolled back more than 60 rules, the us security and exchange commission has been enforcing rules less, and the incoming chair of the federal reserve has said some of the banking rules in place after the financial crisis should be pulled back. one, two, three.

all of this has helped the economy in the short term, but the long—term impacts could be unpleasant. the pendulum swings every eight years or so, and that is a common thing. this swing is more radical than it has been at any time back to reagan. it is more than the traditional pendulum swing. now the question is, what can we expect from the economy going forward? well, the financial markets seem like they will stay strong for now. i would think the first half of 2018 should be pretty positive, i think this has room to go. is it going to be up 20% again in 2018? probably not. strong markets mean mr trump will still have one of his favourite economic indicators to boast about. if, however, some of his other economic aspirations don't pan out, that could pose problems for what could already be a tricky mid—term election. still to come — will 2018 be

the year of the electric revolution? 0ur gadget guru rory cellan—jones gets a sneak peek at the new nissan leaf as he gives us his top tech predictions for the year ahead. but first, it is the poster child for the gig economy, the world's biggest taxi provider, although technically it doesn't actually employ any drivers. uber has transformed the way we move around our cities. but in a year when the chief executive was forced out, three uk cities suspended or revoked licences, and a huge data breach was revealed, i decided to ask a driver for his story, and guess who i found in my uber. simon jack, what are you doing in my uber car? well, james corden turned down my application for his programme, so here we are.

fabulous gareth, you are our uber driver, thank you for picking us up. how long have you been driving for? the firstjourney i made in an uber, i picked some kids up from school, and i got chatting to the drivers, i wanted to find something i could fit in between it contracts and pursuing my passion, which was a more creative field, i wanted to do a bit of acting. is uber the new waiting tables in hollywood? i think it is. i tell people that. this beats waiting tables, because i don't have to go to the bar manager and say, "my grandmother, she is ill," that type of scenario. the flexibility of uber obviously works for you, but not all the drivers agree — we had that tribunal in the uk where it was recently upheld that uber drivers should be classified as workers, not as self—employed. let's listen to one of the guys who brought that appeal. the gig economy model like uber relies on workers they can exploit, in the case of uber,

i was working due to desperation. finance, insurance, licence fees and the list goes on. we have sweated labour, and workers feel exploited on the streets of london today. gareth, do you see yourself as self—employed or as a worker? i view myself as self—employed, because that is what i signed up to. that is what you are told. it is kind of extreme that drivers are being exploited. i mean, you could say, we are all exploited when we do a job. but one thing i don't feel exploited about is working nine to five. it is that desire for flexibility that runs this gig economy, and uber is the embodiment of that gig economy. uber is the poster child for the gig economy. it is the biggest company by far, last time someone bought a share in it, it was worth $68 billion.

i think there is a wider question here, which is, what does the uberisation of the economy mean? the chancellor tried to future—proof the economy against the growth of the gig economy. he tried to increase the national insurance on self—employed workers, there was a massive revolt, he had to climb down, it was embarrassing, but it is a massive problem for governments around the world — how do they deal with changing nature of work? do you pick up any of the kind of anger and fear that they have been disrupted by black cab drivers here in london? i talk to cab drivers about uber, they give a very different opinion, what do you make of that? when tractors were invented, people that were pulling ploughs — not that people pulled ploughs —

but they were up in arms, "these tractors, they've come and taken our jobs." every industry's been disrupted at some point. are you worried that self—driving cars could come and take yours? yeah, exactly — i was about to say that! i have to just accept that and hope that we will rise against the machines and people will be like, "no, i need a human person to speak to." luckily for gareth, driverless taxis are still some way off, but what other developments can we look forward to in 2018? who better to ask than our tech guru, rory cellan—jones? hey, siri — turn on the christmas tree. done. alexa, play some christmas carols. music plays. hey, google, what are your tech predictions for 2018?

sorry, i don't understand. luckily, i've invited two top pundits to help me look into our technology future. come in! hi! great seeing you! hello! go straight on through. rhiannon, where is social media going in 2018? is snapchat finally going to reach old people like me? that's a good question. what are you wearing, by the way? i've got your snap spectacles, rory, so i can snapchat on the go, take my pictures and upload them. that proved pretty, uh, unsuccessful, didn't it, in 2017? as far as we know, snapchat didn't sell half as many of their spectacles as they were expecting to, so i think they are still making a really big play for a more general audience — at the moment, it is still very much heavily weighted towards teenagers, kind of like the under—24s that are using snapchat. but on the sort of reverse side, facebook‘s membership is just going up and up and up — something like a third of the world is now on facebook.

now, how good is it at animating us? i'm sure this will catch on, but maybe not with my demographic. stuart, how are we going to entertain ourselves in 2018? well, it's a really exciting time. there's lots of money is being thrown into it from a traditional sense, and then a future sense as well. traditionally this year, netflix and amazon prime and even apple are getting into the streaming game, putting billions of pounds into creating amazing shows, and trying to convince us of that. we have had a huge explosions in the games market, we've had refreshes from xbox, from playstation, the switch from nintendo has pretty much turned that company around, whether it's mario and zelda. but what we're not seeing is the evolution of and the sort of the creation of vr, mixed reality and ar, so there's virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality. i'm going to pause you there. so one application of augmented reality, i can put furniture in my kitchen.

let's have a go. i'm going to buy the stool. let's see if that stool would look good there. ah, yeah, i think that'll work. i have bought myself a new stool. there it sits. rhiannon! so, rhiannon, i can't help noticing you've brought a little robot with you. does that say something about your big theme for next year? it does! my big theme for 2018 is going to be robots and artificial intelligence. rhiannon! so what's an example of his ai? what's he got in him? cosmo has got a little front—facing camera just there, at the bottom of his face, which enables him to see everybody and also pets that sort of cross his path. so you can programme him to remember you. so, for example, we have programmed him to remember my name so he can say "rhiannon", he can look at you and say "rory", he can look at you and say "stuart".

or you can teach him to recognise the family dog and when he sees the dog, he will go "woof!" so amazon echo has already been a very key example of the kind of early stages of a! that people are playing into, then we had google home with the google assistant as well, apple's going to try and do it with the siri assistant, which we've for years in our phones, and they're looking to integrate it homepod. well, here's another example. help me to speak russian. good morning, my fellow technology pundits. good to have you here. app speaks russian. you speak good russian, don't you, stuart? spasiba. yeah. so, but seriously, amazing technology in these things. we are not very impressed with them yet, though, are we, this kind of device? it is incredible that, you know, 30 years ago, we dreamt of something like the babelfish that could do instant translation, and we've got it. or the universal translator from star trek, which is also,

you know, a lot of people think. i think it is that sort of double guessing, people don't100%... the technology works, but people don't trust it, and therefore it's more of a social thing that you don't want to be in that situation, say something and then start thermonuclear global war kind of thing because you have said something wrong. well, my big theme is about the way more and more of us are going to get around next year. i think you're going to like it. i have a surprise for you. right, what's the surprise? this is the latest in electric motoring. it is the new nissan leaf. it is going to be out next year, so, tesla, look out. you fans of electric motoring? definitely. absolutely. here it is, parked outside my front door. am i going to run an extension cable across the...? no, but i think, you know, a lot of people outside of cities have driveways to park on. i'm going to need lamp posts with charging points on my street, aren't i? well, that's a big part of the budget proposal last month, wasn't it?

they wanted to create a nation of charging points, so people will get rid of the kind of fear about electric cars, which is running out of gas when you are halfway down the motorway, and you cannot charge it anywhere, so once people are sort of reassured that they will be able to charge them at regular intervals, that probably will be what it needs for electric cars to truly take off. i think it's — we are going to see start to see over the next three to five years a real push on electric, and once you start getting the charging system working, either through this amazing lamp post system that we have on most streets or in the sort of long—term future, charging pads within the tarmac of the road, then, you know, it is the future, we are getting there, it is just we're in that final stage of mass adoption. well, your chariot awaits. happy christmas and enjoy the ride. thank you. merry christmas. cheers, thanks. alexa, stop. that's all we have time for in review 2017, but we will be sure to bring you all the latest breaking news on brexit, trump, uber and electric cars in the new year. but for now, thanks for watching. hi there.

it was scotland and northern england that bore the brunt of the snowy weather. bringing localised disruptions on friday but also great conditions for getting out on the sledges in bradford, west yorkshire. further north in scotland, again we had some heavy falls of snow out and about. snow near the roadside here in speyside, a bit of slush on the roads and with temperatures fallen away, we are expecting icy stretches as we start off the morning saturday, particularly for the northern half of the uk. across england and wales many areas had this band of rain through which has brought mild conditions. temperatures 10—13 degrees first thing saturday morning, mild start to the day. through the rest of saturday, many of us starting on a cloudy and grey note, a few bright sunny spells getting through across wales and the midlands.

another band of rain will slip into that cold air in scotland, bringing snow to the mountains particularly across 200 metres elevation to the north and central of the central belt. higher areas perhaps seeing sleet for a time. quite a contrast in temperatures. quite chilly in the north, very mild further south, 13 or 1a degrees. we have had the snow and cold weather but times they are a changing. you might have heard storm dylan is expected to form in this part of the atlantic. at the moment itjust doesn't exist. the area of low pressure doesn't exist, but this area of cloud will be passing underneath a very powerful 190 mph jet stream and this creates storm dylan. a bit of uncertainty exactly how strong it will be or how far north south it will be. it will likely bring some severe gales to the northern half of the uk, scotland, northern ireland and northern england. also heavy outbreaks of rain blowing in the wind, but by the time we get to the afternoon, dylan would have bobbed into the north sea, leaving behind a whole rash of blustery showers, still with some snow in high ground in scotland and a range of temperatures still. highs of 5 or 6 in scotland, further south 11 or 12 degrees.

and on the mild side. what about new years celebrations? not as cold as it has been. four degrees to scotland and northern ireland, northern england as well. some showers knocking around and that is true further south as well in england and wales, with temperatures around london about seven celsius, a blustery south—westerly wind. for new year's day, outbreaks of rain quite close to southern england, further north in scotland, wet and windy weather still with the risk of snow across the high ground scotland above 200m. in between these areas of weather some sunshine to be found on new year's day. that is your latest weather. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories: iran's anti—government protests spread. thousands across the country demand an end to corruption, rising prices and the release of political prisoners.

a toddler playing with a stove is thought to have caused new york's worst fire for decades. twelve people died in the blaze in the bronx. funerals in egypt for nine people killed in attacks on coptic christians. so—called islamic state have claimed responsibility. peace and love! and arise, sir ringo. the beatles‘ drummer, ringo starr, receives a knighthood in the new year honours list. so too does bee gee barry gibb.