i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: iran says countrywide protests are being orchestrated by outside forces. the us calls the claim ridiculous. the long climb out of poverty. we have a special report on china's hopes to lift millions of people from remote villages into a better life. the continued existence of serious, widespread poverty represents a threat to the very legitimacy of a communist party that came to power promising to help communities like these, not leave them behind. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme. the us warns of more sanctions, as it accuses north korea of preparing to carry out another ballistic missile test. and outrage on the internet after an american youtuber uploads a video of a suicide victim in a japanese forest. live from our studios in singapore

and london, this is bbc world news. it's newsday. good morning. it's 9am in singapore, 1am in london, and 4:30am in iran, where more protests have been taking place in cities across the country. the us has dismissed claims by tehran that the country's "enemies" have stirred up days of anti—government protests. the united states says it wants an emergency session of the security council to discuss the situation in iran. our middle east editor, jeremy bowen, reports. in tehran, squads of motorbike police are cruising the streets to break up groups of demonstrators. the protests have changed since they started last thursday. gunshots to begin with, they were about the economy. most of the protesters

are young men. more than 50% of iranians are under 30 and perhaps 40% of them are unemployed. but pent up political frustration is spilling out and much of it has been directed at this man, the supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei. he is the powerfulfigurehead of the islamic republic, and attacks on his posters will be seen as attacks on the islamic system. he's blaming iran's foreign enemies. translation: following recent events, the enemies have united and using all their means — money, weapons, policies and security services — to create problems for the islamic republic. it's notjust ayatollah khamenei, the supreme leader, who's blaming foreigners.

mohammad khatami, the former president, who's a reformist, says iranians have the right to protest, but he blamed iran's enemies, led by the united states, for inciting people to destroy public buildings and to insult religious values. president obama, in 2009, was careful not to give the last big protest his backing. but president trump has tweeted his support. the people of iran, he declared, are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt iranian regime. the americans are encouraging the protests. but they deny they are behind them. we all know that is complete nonsense. the demonstrations are completely spontaneous. they are virtually in every city in iran. this is the precise picture of a long—oppressed people rising up against their dictators.

the last big protests in iran were in 2009, after a disputed presidential election. back then, they were defeated by the power of the state, even though they were led by top politicians and faced a badly divided islamic leadership. the new street level protests don't have national leaders and may run out of steam. this is not a new iranian revolution, though it's clear that many iranians are fed up with increasing poverty and years of repression. the fact the protests are happening at all is very significant for iran, its allies and enemies in a chaotic part of the world. jeremy bowen, bbc news. let's take a look at some of the day's other news. the united states says it's hearing reports that north korea might be preparing for another missile test. it's warning that would mean tougher measures against pyongyang. earlier, south korea

proposed high—level talks with north korea next week. it comes a day after the north korean leader said he was open to dialogue and was considering sending a team to next month's winter olympics in south korea, something the south korean president welcomed. translation: we welcome that the north korean leader, kim jong—un, expressed a willingness to send athletes to the pyeongchang olympics and to hold inter—korea government talks, during his new year address. i believe that this is in response to our proposals to make the olympics and opportunity to improve inter—korean relations and peace. but a short while ago the us state department expressed scepticism about the talks, saying kim jong—un may be trying to drive a wedge between the us and south korea. more analysis on our website. and now for some other news today. a bus has crashed in peru

killing at least 36 people. it happened on a dangerous stretch of road, north of the capital, lima. the administration is withholding $255 million in assistance to pakistan. there are clear reasons for this. pakistan has played a double game for years. they work with us at times and they also harbour the terrorists that attack our troops in afghanistan. that game is not acceptable to this administration. we expect far more co—operation from pakistan in the fight against terrorism. a bus has crashed in peru killing at least 36 people. it happened on a dangerous stretch of road, north of the capital, lima. witnesses say the driver lost control after the bus was hit by another vehicle. it then plummeted nearly 100 metres down a cliff. scientists in britain have developed an artificial intelligence system which they say can diagnose heart disease more accurately than doctors.

at the moment, cardiologists get one in five of their diagnoses from heart scans wrong, resulting in some patients being sent home and having a heart attack. these dramatic pictures are from the us state of florida. members of the us coastguard rescued a senior citizen from a car that plunged into the waters off panama city, over the new year holidays. they managed to pull him outjust moments before the vehicle sank by breaking through the window. the chinese government has set itself an extraordinary target of the lifting of 43 million people out of extreme poverty injust three years. president, xijinping, recognises the pressing political need to close the gap between china's urban rich and some desperately poor rural communities. in our special report, john sudworth is in the southwestern province of sichuan, where some of the obstacles facing such remote communities will be challenging.

it's best not to look down. step—by—step, and heavily laden, this is the only way to the village at the top. but the two—hour, 800—metre climb is easier and safer than it used to be. but the two—hour, 800—metre climb is easier and safer than it used to be. the old, home—made wooden ladder, still visible here and there, has been replaced with a spectacular series of steel ladders. remote mountain communities like these, languishing so far behind china's big cities, now find themselves on the front line of a massive anti—poverty campaign. the improved access to this clifftop

village has won praise from none other than china's president, xijinping. but life here remains tough. while president xi may be promising to lift 43 million people out of this kind of extreme poverty, not everyone's convinced. translation: we have no income. we are poor. we grow corn and potatoes, nothing else. the government says that it wants to wipe out poverty in the next three years in china. do you think it's possible? translation: i don't really think so. china has a more radical solution, though. in the past 12 months alone, more than three million of china's poorest people have been relocated to new homes. a smiling president xi looks down on the new schoolrooms. this family has now left its remote mountain village for good. you no longer have the open

fire, you no longer live close to your animals. do you miss those things, those traditions? translation: we don't miss the old way of life or the unhygienic things, like having a pigsty right at the door. meanwhile, the anti—poverty slogans are everywhere. even the new ladder is a national news story. this is poverty as propaganda. it's an issue that's now dominating the domestic news agenda, and it's driven by the vision ofjust one man. president xijinping knows that the continued existence of serious, widespread poverty represents a threat to the very legitimacy

of a communist party that came to power promising to help communities like these, not leave them behind. even if china can help all those living below the extreme poverty line, tens of millions more will be left languishing just above it. but while there are many challenges, no—one can doubt the sheer scale of china's ambition. john sudworth, bbc news, sichuan province. an incredible structure there. an american youtube star has apologised for a video that he posted showing the body of a suicide victim injapan. it was viewed six million times before it was taken down. logan paul and his entourage went to film at the aokigahara forest at the base of mount fuji, known to be a frequent site of suicides. as well as showing the dead man's body, paul and his friendsjoked about theirfind. one of his group says "he doesn't feel good." but logan paul responded by saying "what, you never seen a dead guy?" and then he laughs.

in response to the outrage, logan paul posted a lengthy apology on twitter and later issued this video on his youtube channel. i made a severe and continuous lapse in myjudgement and i do not expect to be forgiven. i'm simply here to apologise. so what we came i'm simply here to apologise. so what we came across i'm simply here to apologise. so what we came across that day in the woods was obviously unplanned and the reactions you saw on tape we re and the reactions you saw on tape were raw, they were unfiltered. none of us knew how to react or how to feel. i should have never posted the video. i should have put the cameras down and stopped recording what we were going through. there's a lot of things i should have done differently but i didn't and that, from the bottom of my heart, i am sorry. you're watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme: the plastics problem.

why the uk is under pressure to find new ways to recycle waste following china's new policy. also on the programme: will 2018 bring the world's first vaccine for malaria? and what about the growing resistance to antibiotics? we'll look ahead to the main health stories of this year. the most ambitious financial and political change ever attempted has got under way with the introduction of the euro. tomorrow in holland, we are going to use money we picked up in belgium today, and then we will be in france and again it will be the same money. it's just got to be the way to go. george harrison, the former beatle, is recovering in hospital after being stabbed at his oxfordshire home. a 33—year—old man from liverpool is being interviewed by police

on suspicion of attempted murder. i think it was good. you... just good? no, fantastic! that's better. welcome back. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. and i'm kasia madera in london. our top stories this hour: the us praises demonstrators in iran, but ridicules claims by iran's supreme leader that the protests are being orchestrated by outside forces. the us warns of more sanctions, as it accuses north korea of preparing to carry out another ballistic missile test. let's now take a look at some

newspapers from around the world. we start of with of the gulf news, and it reports on what it calls foreign intervention in the iranian protests. it says western powers are pushing tehran to guarantee the right to protest as the crackdown intensifies. and shifting now to the financial times, it takes a look at brexit. it's reporting that talks are taking place on britainjoining the tra ns—pacific partnership. the uk would be the first member not to border the pacific ocean or the south china sea. and, finally, the south china morning post has a warning for pickpockets. the metroline has cameras fitted over every inch in ultrahigh definition. and a family feud is

sparking discussions online. what a way to start the new year. trending right now is a rather unusual story from taiwan, where a mother is suing her son for almost a million dollars. it's after the pair signed a contract in 1997 that she would pay for his dentistry training, as long as he gave her 60% of his earnings when he qualified. she took her son to court after he refused to pay for several years. the son argued it was wrong to demand a financial return for raising a child, but the court ruled the contract valid. you can read much more about that story on our website. i would just airof the story on our website. i would just air of the agreement so that we could have a harmonious family. —— —— tear up that agreement. with the new year well under way, we look ahead to 2018

and what will be the most pressing health stories to watch out for. our health correspondent tulip mazumdar has more. these are the top global health stories you're likely to hear lots more about in 2018. the world's first ever vaccine for malaria is due to be rolled out in kenya, malawi, and ghana in the summer. malaria killed almost half a million people in 2016. the pilot scheme will involve around 750,000 children in those countries. the new vaccine does have limitations. it needs to be given four times over two years, and even then it only protects around four in ten children. however, there are high hopes that the vaccine could save tens of thousands of lives. there are so many health emergencies coming out of the world's conflict zones as we enter 2018, and yet more urgent calls to ensure medical supplies can get to those caught up in the violence. the cholera outbreak in yemen quickly became the worst in modern history last year. there have been around 1 million suspected cases injust eight

months, more than 2000 people have died of the waterborne disease. yemen is also teetering on the brink of famine. there are warnings that thousands of children will die in the early months of 2018 unless blockades at ports and airports are fully lifted and the fighting stops to let desperately needed supplies through. and in bangladesh, the rohingya refugees continue fleeing into the country from neighbouring myanmar, because of the cramped and insanitary conditions in cox bazaar, where hundreds of thousands of refugees have gathered there are warnings of a potential outbreak of cholera here too. vaccination campaigns for cholera have already been under way, but the world health organization says it will start rolling out other inoculations for children including measles, polio, and tb in the coming weeks and months. the ongoing crisis with antibiotics that no longer work was on my list last year and will no doubt be on my list for some years to come, because antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest global health threats of our time.

the antibiotics we have been using for decades to treat common infections aren't working as well as they used to. it has been predicted that antibiotic resistance could lead to 10 million deaths by 2050. however, there are a new drug trials planned for 2018 in eastern europe, for example, for multi—resista nt tuberculosis. this issue will be at the top of the agenda a meeting of global health leaders in thailand next month. well earlier i spoke to mishal khan. she is assistant professor of health policy and systems research at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine. i began by asking her what can be done against the resistance to antibiotics. it is a really tricky one. there is notjust one driver of the resistance. there is obviously the overuse or misuse from the human side

and there's a lot of misuse on the animal side. then there is obviously, in certain countries, you can get antibiotics over the counter, in a lot of asian countries. people often aren't even aware that they are taking an antibiotic. theyjust go to a drug shop where there is an untrained provider that gives them something that they believe will help them and they're not really aware what they are taking. so, in the uk, for example, it's becoming much tighter, it's more difficult to get antibiotics. doctors are more reluctant to prescribe them. so are you saying in some asian countries you can get them without a prescription? yes. you can get pretty much anything you want without a prescription. and that's partly because there's a lack of trained healthcare providers, the public health infrastructure is limited, so people do go to untrained, informal providers for a lot of their healthcare needs. that's one thing that we are concerned about in terms of organising a structure, you need investment, don't you? and many of these countries just simply don't have the investment in healthcare.

yes, absolutely. for exmaple, countries like pakistan and myanmar are less than 1% of their gdp the government has spent on on healthcare. it will not go very far. there is a lack of human resources, actual physical health facilities, people are having to turn to informal providers or self—care. even though we are talking about the first vaccine possibly for malaria being tested this year, because the infrastructure isn't there, people are just simply not going to access it? yes, it is a real shame. it is important to invest in new tools and technologies, but it is also important to remember that vaccines can't fly to people, they have to be delivered by health—care workers, there need to be healthcare facilities, and there needs to be a trust between the population and the healthcare system so that people will seek care there and feel comfortable

vaccinating their children in healthcare facilities. that was michelle khan from the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine speaking earlier. yesterday we reported china had begun a yesterday we reported china had beguna ban yesterday we reported china had begun a ban on importing plastic waste to try to reduce pollution. today we are going to look at the other side of the story. well, today we're going to look at the other side of that story. in britain, the recycling system is about to be put under severe pressure. until now, almost half of what britain recycles every year has been sent to china. so what will happen now to all the plastic people in britain throw away? our science editor david shukman reports. ever wondered what happens to our recycling? well, great streams of it are sorted in giant centres like this one in south—east london.

the tins are extracted by magnet and are sold to food and drink manufacturers. the machines then try to pick out the plastic. the bags make this much harder. but if all this can be sorted, it can be sold on, and the biggest market has been china, until now. this is the tip of the iceberg of what we send off for recycling. and what the chinese have done is said that they're no longer going to accept anything that's difficult to handle. so, anything that's dirty, or this kind of thin plastic that's hard to recycle. in fact, a mix of different types of plastic. and this has sent shockwaves through the recycling industry. already, huge bundles of recycling turned down by china are piling up in hong kong. and mountains of unwanted plastic waste may build up in britain. i think it's a game—changer for the uk. i think for the last two decades, at least, all our collection systems have been geared up to having the chinese market. you know, they, china take virtually half of everything that we produce in terms of paper and plastics in the uk.

so, what will happen? well, there's now a rush to try to sell the stuff to india and other countries. but there's a limit to what they'll take. another option is to burn the plastic here. most incinerators generate electricity, so this wouldn't be a total waste. but the greenest solution is to turn plastic into the raw material to make new plastic objects, like milk containers, and we may see more of this. we've made incredible progress in terms of recycling in this country, but we're stalling now. and the chinese ban to import bad quality may be a great incentive and the best chance ever for this country. it takes a human eye to pick out what the machines miss. householders are often confused. most thin plastic film can't be used again. different councils have their own rules. and few products are designed with recycling in mind. there is now pressure for all that to change, and china's ban may actually encourage that. david shukman, bbc news.

david, thank you so much for my new new years resolution, more recycling in 2018. thank you so much for watching newsday. i'm rico hizon in singapore. stay with us. we look at how renault is using virtual reality to take the stress out of driving. 0h, oh, that would be nice, wouldn't it, rico? before we go, we have been talking about the real cold spell across the united states. well, as disruptive as this extreme weather tends to be, you've got to look at that, it looks stunning, doesn't it, images of niagara falls, at which have frozen over, parts of which, at least, have frozen over, and they look beautiful.

a very windy, stormy night for some, and certainly a stormy start to wednesday. the met office amber be prepared warnings for the wind likely to go during the early hours of wednesday. we are likely to see disruptions, power cuts, trees down in places because of this, storm eleanor, which brought in very strong winds across parts of ireland during tuesday evening. it's continuing its journey eastwards. tightly packed isoba rs across most of the country, away from the north of scotland, which will have relatively light winds. very strong winds to start across the north of england, southern scotland. 70—90 mph gusts. 60 mph across england and wales, with the risk of 70, maybe 80 mph across the south coast. likely to be some disruption from these severe gales for much of the uk across the early hours and to start wednesday. keep tuned to bbc radio, particularly if you head out

for the morning rush. a very windy morning, gale force winds. the severe gale easing down as storm eleanor moves out to the north sea. plenty of showers rattling through the morning and also into the afternoon. some of these showers will be heavy with hail and thunder, very squally, gusty winds as they arrive. but, in between, there will be spells of sunshine. top temperatures reaching around 10 degrees across the south. it may not be like that because of the strength of the winds. plenty of showers further north. long spells of rain in northern ireland, central and southern scotland. but, actually, pretty quite across the north of scotland. fairly light winds, sunshine, showers there into the northern isles. wednesday a brief respite, the wind will die down somewhat. plenty of clear spells. it's goign to be quite a cool night to come. we look to the south—west, to the next area of low pressure, which will make inroads during wednesday night and into the start of thursday. now, this area of low pressure will be a little bit further south. so it looks like we could see the strongest winds across southern britain, certainly south wales,

southern england seeing gale force winds. but quite mild with it. 12—13 degrees despite the heavy rain. the north cooler, maybe snow in the higher ground, outbreaks of rain. fairly strong winds here, too, but not as strong as in the south. as we head through friday, transitional days. the weather front moving southwards. heavy rain on it. behind it, the air turns much colder. increasing amounts of snow to the hills and to lower levels. and that's a sign of things to come into the weekend. much colder air pouring down across the uk, it's likely to introduce snow showers in places and a return to overnight frosts. i'm with bbc news. our top story: the united states has ridiculed claims by the supreme leader of iran that outside forces are orchestrating protests. 22 people have been killed in the protests which began against price rises and corruption, but have broadened to wider anti—government sentiment. the united states has warned of further sanctions against north korea if it carries out further ballistic missile tests. it was responding to reports that pyongyang may be preparing another launch. and this story is

trending on bbc.com. taiwan's top court has ordered a man to pay his mother almost $1 million for funding his dentistry training. he'd signed a contract agreeing to pay her 60% of his income after qualifying but later refused. that's all from me for now. stay with us here on bbc news. and the top story here in the uk: the west coast of ireland is bearing the brunt of storm eleanor. 10,000 homes in northern ireland are without power.