that means building an economy fit for the future and taking a balanced approach to government spending. so we get our debt falling but can also invest in the things that matter — our schools, our police and our precious nhs. theresa may says next year will continue the fight against all forms of extremism and she believes 2018 can be a year of renewed pride in our country. meanwhile, the tone ofjeremy corbyn‘s address was rather different. he said we are being held back by a self—serving elite and pointed to the gains labour made at the general election, saying this was a year when people said, "no more." the old political consensus is finished. we are staking out the new centre ground in british politics, backing the things that most people want but are blocked by vested interests. we are a government in waiting while the conservatives are weak, divided and stuck in an outdated rut with no new ideas. the hope of a new britain, which runs in the interests

of the many, not the few, seems closer than ever before. the new year messages brought to a close what has been politically dramatic 12 months. emma vardy, bbc news. technology is giving historians a new insight into everyday life in ancient egypt. researchers at university college london have developed scanning techniques that show what is written on the papyrus that a sarcophagus case is made from. pallab ghosh has this exclusive report. the hieroglyphics found in the tombs of the pharaohs show the lives of the ancient egyptians. paintings are what the rich and powerful wanted the paint —— the people to know. they are the propaganda of their time. now there is a wealth of information using a new scientific

technique. with a specially modified camera, technique. with a specially modified camera , researcher carys technique. with a specially modified camera, researcher carys jones technique. with a specially modified camera, researcher carstones takes photos of the mummy‘s case in kent. you cannot see anything with the naked eye. using infrared, a name is revealed. a common name in ancient egypt. stephen horror david of its time. it's amazing. everyone in the room gasped and people around the computer. in that one image you could read it. these scraps of papyrus are more than 2000 years. they were recycled to make the breastplate recover a mummified body. the writing is obscured by the plaster that holds it together. researchers can see what lies beneath by scanning them with different kinds of light, which makes the inks glow. these constitute one of the best libraries we have of where papyrus would otherwise have been thrown away. tax

receipts and everyday information that we would nowadays throwaway. back then they would have thrown it away. fortunately it was recycled into these objects. our knowledge of ancient egypt is through the eyes of the pharaohs and the very wealthy, buried with their possessions. this new imaging technique is enabling researchers to find out about the lives of ordinary egyptians. until now, the only way to see what was written on the papyrus was to destroy these masks, leaving researchers with a dilemma. do they destroy them or keep them on touched, leaving the stories within them on told? i'm really horrified when i see them being destroyed. they are finite resources. we now have the technology to both preserve those beautiful, precious objects that tell us about ways of dying, but also looking inside them to

understand the way the egyptians lived. there are hundreds of cases and masks that can be scanned, each one telling its own individual story of everyday life in ancient egypt. pa rlon of everyday life in ancient egypt. parlon ghosh, bbc news. it's already 2018 in new zealand. three, two, one. the traditional firework display in auckland marks one of the first major countries to see in the new year followed by australia. you can see more on all of today's stories on the bbc news channel. the next news on bbc one is at five past six , bye for now. historic moments captured on film from a bygone age.

we have been given exclusive access to a priceless archive from places that were new to western eyes. many of these films, from the frozen mountains of the himalayas to the searing libyan desert, have not seen the light of day for a hundred years. sons and daughters of the pioneering explorers see their fathers' remarkable footage for the very first time. to see this film makes me feel very proud of him. i'm in awe of what he managed to do. they went into the unknown without any consideration for their safety. these are some of britain's great explorations. the british film institute's national archive is a treasure trove of britain's past.

among the thousands of films stored in this vault are some shot by young explorers as they travelled to unexplored parts of the globe. now they're being digitised and put online so that we can all relive their incredible stories. among them is this film released by gaumont british in 193a. it's the first flight over mount everest. this view from the top of mount everest had never been seen before. the footage is also helping scientists today learn more about the impact of climate change. will you give me a hand with this strap? certainly! it was shot by major latham valentine stewart blacker, a former fighter pilot and war hero. he was a real—life biggles. the film is a staged re—enactment of the first flight over everest, but it includes the actual aerial footage shot during the expedition

and stars the original aviators. well, do you realise you could put everest on the map in three hours? you're still thinking of the alps. why not? a good plane, camera shooting down, and you could record every detail. i wonder. don't be fooled by the ham acting. this film won an oscar. the men risked their lives, flying higher than anyone had flown before to capture this historic footage. wings 0ver everest is part of the royal geographical society's archive of expeditions it sponsored in the early part of the 20th century. what was the motivation? what was the purpose of the society? the purpose has always been to undertake scientific exploration and improve understanding of the world, its people and places.

the society has a collection of over two million items. it's the world's largest collection of geographically related maps, photographs, artefacts, diaries, notebooks and publications. and this film collection, which has been housed for the society at the british film institute for many years, is the last portion of our collections that has not been made more accessible. this is the earliest known film of tibet. it was shown in cinemas all across the uk. audiences were gripped by this astonishing footage of a strange and mysterious new world. they were taken by a young army officer on the first attempt to reach the summit of mount everest in 1922. before they set off, the climbers

seek a blessing at a monastery. they're treated as honoured guests and shown ritual dances. this one is a tale of reincarnation. around their waists are aprons made from a lattice of human bones. and theirface masks are made from stretched human skin. the cameraman was captainjohn noel. although it was shown in cinemas, his daughter has actually never seen the film until now. he suggested to the mount everest committee that they took film and they pooh—poohed this idea, said, "no, it would vulgarise the expedition." but he nevertheless persuaded them, and he said, you know, "this is a record that we need to make, like scott of the antarctic." this was going to be a world event. it was a bit like the moon landings. yes, it was, it was, yes.

we'd just come back through the war. you know, we were impoverished, people had very little to be excited about, and here was this expedition to mount everest. john noel climbed treacherous rock faces with his camera equipment by day, and by night he would develop his footage. he had this purpose—built tent he'd taken with him to base camp, and at night, using water from the glaciers and yak dung as a source of heat, he processed 10,000 feet of film on the mountain to be sure that he'd got the right composition and good exposures. what was your father's motivation? it was the fact that it had not been climbed, a feeling of doing this for king and country, and that it should be the british who should at least make an attempt on the mountain. you see, they're just strolling around in very casual clothes. but it does look as though it's a sort of ramble in the lake district, doesn't it? yes! it was all hand—knitted at home and tweed jackets.

there's a lovely photograph of my father with a pocket handkerchief and a tie down at base camp! mount everest, that's how he prepared ? ever the gentleman, you know, i mean, that's how they presented themselves. i think not only were they born in the victorian era, but i think the war had moulded them. they had seen so much carnage that they were ready for anything. and it made them very stoic and fearless. they went into the unknown without any consideration for their safety. and the footage is of scientific as well as historical value. it's just absolutely fabulous, these images from 1922. david breashears has literally followed in captain noel‘s footsteps, and he's taken his own images of mount everest from the very same places as the early explorers.

and here is the glacier we're looking at right here, the east rongbuk glacier is the glacier here, right through here. he provides the old and new images to scientists. they use them to determine the impact climate change has had on the himalayas over the past hundred years. but until now, he's only had a handful of still images from the early expeditions. so the availability of captain noel‘s footage will give him and climate scientists much more data to work with. the historic imagery in the archives of the royal geographical society is this unlimited gift and a treasure to scientists. these are time—stamped images, essentially. we know when they were taken and where they were taken. we can find the same positions and take a picture of the exact same place and very clearly, and with extremely high resolution, take note of the difference.

and all that difference is in loss — loss of mass in the glacier. it's irrefutable, it's clear, it sends the same signal to all who see it. in the end, captain noel and his fellow climbers' attempt to reach the summit failed. they came so close. they were just half a kilometre short of the summit. at these high altitudes, the air became too thin for them, and so they were forced to turn back. they were just overwhelmed by everything. the terrain, the difficulty of the climb, this constant wind, which i think they weren't expecting. but the team had climbed higher than anyone had climbed before and laid the groundwork for the eventual ascent to the summitjust 30 years later by tenzing norgay and sir edmund hillary. here at the bfi, conservation specialists are painstakingly

restoring 138 films of some of britain's greatest explorations, frame by frame. one of them is of a young army officer crossing the vast expanse of the libyan desert by motorcar. ralph bagnold and his friends are on a journey that will take them into uncharted territory. bagnold was a pioneer of desert exploration. he was an army officer stationed in egypt. his expeditions involved driving thousands of miles into the blistering heat of the libyan desert. no—one had crossed it. no, no—one had crossed it, no—one had crossed it by car before. his son stephen has heard stories of these incredible expeditions, but it's the first time he's seen them. that's my father driving there, and you can see the bonnet is off, and you can see the pipe running from the radiator into the...

that was a modification? that was the modification to prevent loss of water through evaporation, in the radiator. it was a journey that pushed bagnold, his men and the cars to their very limits. they had to take everything they needed to survive with them. it was all rationed. water, i think it was three pints a day — one at breakfast, one at lunch. all for drinking. you washed in the sand, you washed your plates and stuff in the sand. they travelled thousands of miles across the featureless terrain. bagnold invented a sun compass which enabled them to navigate with incredible precision. they never strayed more than a mile from their intended destination. the experts proclaimed it couldn't be done. and not, i think, because he wanted to show them who was the master, butjust because it tickled his fancy that maybe, with clear planning and with the right

equipment and stuff, there could be a way. when one of the cars broke down, it was cannibalised for spare parts and abandoned and they're still out there somewhere, buried among the dunes. the vehicles would often get stuck in the sand, and each time bagnold and his team would find ever more ingenious ways of extricating them. it looks as if they were using strips of metal that they bought in cairo that had been intended to go on the roof, but it appeared to do the job well. they're basically laying tracks or a surface from which the car can get out. 0nce out, you had to keep going, otherwise you'd just sink again into the same patch of soft sand. bagnold took careful measurements to understand how the sand is moved by the wind. he wrote several books on the subject and was elected to the royal society, a group of the country's most

distinguished scientists. to see this film makes me feel very proud of him, of course, and i'm in awe of what he managed to do. his research has helped nasa explore mars. these features on the martian surface are named the bagnold dunes in honour of the great explorer. all the wheels are coming into alignment. abbie hutty has taken up his legacy. she's developing europe's first mars rover at this test—bed in stevenage outside london. abbie is trying to develop new ways to cross the martian sand, just as bagnold did in libya 80 years earlier. he was the first one to really look at the materials that the sand was made out of, and the wind forces and the distribution,

and how friction played a part and all of those things, and that's how we predict what it's going to be like on mars. it's all about that dry, dusty nature of the sand, and trying to drive over that without sinking into it. that's our biggest challenge. i really do think he'd be absolutely delighted, amazed and delighted if he knew that the work he'd done all that time ago had an application, and a very real application, to the exploration of mars. i think he'd be tickled pink. this is the bfi's grading room, where the final adjustments are made before the films are released to the public. this one is from a news bulletin from 1951 which may well be one of the first examples of fake news. we're off on the track of that abominable snowman, and our first clues are these

footprints, photographed by eric shipton, leader of the 1951 everest expedition... so what made the footprints? some zoologists thought that the himalayan bear, seen here, might be the snowman. or maybe it's the american mountain bear — but if so, how did he wander into tibet? the experts were baffled. here, we can compare the plaster casts of various animal footprints with the photos published in the times. but was it really all just a publicity stunt for the times newspaper, which was raising money for the next everest expedition? meantime, everest guards her secret. i think it's more about how the story is used by the times to promote awareness of this attempt in ‘51. so today, i suppose, we would see it as being a kind of a hook for news. in 1951, it's the year in london of the festival of london, so there's a huge resurgence in optimism after the second world war, and the whole idea that britain is going to try to reach the summit of everest first is taking shape.

thousands of miles away in yemen, a pilot, aubrey rickards, filmed the hadhramaut, a region that is home to an ancient civilisation. the film shows skyscrapers built in the 16th century from mud. some are 11 storeys high. there are even whitewashed mud constructions that look like vast grand palaces. they're still inhabited to this day. this was the first metropolis. it's the very first film footage of yemen. from the air, you see the extraordinary landscape of the hadhramaut, which is an area full of wadis, where water would flow down and enabled human habitation from prehistory onwards. and what you're seeing

is what i think is one of the most extraordinarily sophisticated developments of urban living, because you have people living in adobe—constructed, mud—constructed multistorey habitations. the first skyscrapers. they're often described as the manhattan of the desert. in the actual manhattan, during the late ‘60s, eastern mysticism was popularised by the hippy culture of the time. young people in many western countries were inspired to find love, peace and harmony in their lives. but these ideas have their roots in asia, from films shot in the 1930s across the himalayan ranges, of journeys through bhutan and tibet.

the men who shot this footage thought they had discovered paradise among the himalayan mountains. george sherriff and frank ludlow filmed scenes of a simpler way of life, where people were happy, content, and lived to a ripe old age. they stumbled on what they thought was a brighter, more hopeful world — a contrast to the grim desolation of europe after the first world war. this map, dug out from the archives of the royal geographical society by professor michael heffernan, shows seven of sherriff and ludlow‘s expeditions. each colour represents a different journey. well, essentially, it's these remarkable routes they took along a river valley, and their primary concern was essentially to map the area,

so this is a sort of sketch map produced at the end of all of their expeditions. when sherriff and ludlow begin their expeditions in this area of tibet in 1933, it's exactly the same year when james hilton publishes the lost horizon, which introduces the idea of shangri—la, this kind of perfect place. this was a mountain kingdom, a vestigial world of peace and harmony, precisely the world that had been so obviously left behind by the industrial warfare that they'd gone through. a world where people could live extraordinary long lives of peace and harmony. and a better world. 450 feet of rock soaring out of the north atlantic,

known as the old man of hoy, and a very crumbling old man he is. in1967, 15 million people in the uk watched live asjoe brown and five others took on the old man of hoy in 0rkney, off the coast of scotland. we just had a bit of a slight tangle in the rope there which stopped me pulling the rope up into the carabiner to secure myself. he was then, and still is, among the world's most well—known climbers. but his greatest achievement was nearly 30 years earlier in the himalayas, scaling the unclimbed mountain of kangchenjunga. it's almost as high as everest but harder to climb. some of his fellow mountaineers were involved in the successful ascent of everest two years earlier. they were climbing royalty. joe was a builder from manchester.

this was my kangchenjunga axe that i was supplied with. joe recalls how surprised he was when the expedition leader asked him tojoin. when i received a telegram, saying, "invited on kangchenjunga expedition, letter following, want to meet you in london, et cetera," i was... i mean, it wasjust incredible, ijust couldn't believe it. the mountain was prone to avalanches, and its terrain was treacherous butjoe was fearless. that's me. camp 1 was actually in a crevasse, and while we were there, i decided to go and take a bathroom break, so i walked without any fear until i got round the corner, where there was this massive hole. it was the deepest, biggest crevasse i'd ever seen,

and i was standing on the same thin bridge that was on the opposite side of the hole, so i very carefully turned around and tried to make myself weightless and crept back round the corner to where it was solid. but it was very nervy stuff. joe and his fellow climber george band stopped just short of the summit. it was a promise they'd made to the nepalese authorities to respect local beliefs that the peak was home to the gods. i got to the top, but ijust pulled over, and there was just a snow cone rising up about 15 or 20 feet. i shouted down to him, "we're there, george." and the feeling is not of whoopee. you just think, "i don't have to go any further!"

it's just a fantastic feeling of relief. these great explorations are from an age when the first portable film cameras made it possible for a mass audience to see many of the world's most inaccessible wonders for the very first time. adventurers risked their lives to explore a world that still held so many mysteries. and now we're all able to see what they saw, as theyjourney to the ends of the earth, drawn by the thrill of the unknown, and spurred on by challenge that they found irresistible.

. hello a met office amber warning remains in scotland for a potentially damaging winds. it is southern scotland were the strongest of the winds will be. the wind strengths ease down in the afternoon. still blustery for money. sunshine for eastern england. a scattering of showers with sunny spells towards the west. showers in many areas this evening. be prepared for that. the east will stay dry. lighter winds in the morning. a cold start to new year's day. after a chilly start, lots of sunshine. a few showers in the west. we could see something wider push through the

channel islands. in the afternoon showers and western scotland, northern ireland and northern england. bye for now. you're watching bbc news — let's take you live to sydney in australia, which is just about to ring in the new year. always setting the bar for displays with fireworks over the iconic syd ney with fireworks over the iconic sydney harbour. it is estimated that 1.5 million people gathered on the shore to watch several tonnes of pyrotechnics light up the night sky. there is going to be a rainbow theme as part of this display to mark australia passing same—sex marriage laws. just about to hear the countdown now in sydney.