welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: taking sides in iran — the us calls for a un security council meeting, the us calls for a un security council meeting, after denying claims it was involved in anti—government protests. tragedy in peru — at least 36 people are killed as their coach plummets down a cliff near the capital, lima. the long climb out of poverty — a special report on china's hopes to lift millions of people from their 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. the plastics problem — why the uk is under pressure to find new ways to recycle waste, following china's new policy. riot police are out in force

in cities across iran as anti—government protests continue. at least 22 people have died since the demonstrations began seven days ago. hundreds of people have been arrested. iran's supreme leader broke his silence for the first time since the protests began, accusing his country's enemies of stirring up the unrest. the protests are the boldest challenge to iran's clerical leadership for almost a decade. the united states says it plans to call an emergency session of the un security council. here's our middle east editorjeremy bowen. 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. and for more on that story we can go live to new york, where i'm joined by amir handjani, a senior fellow at the atlantic council. thank you for your time. not due iranian revolution, iran is a

wealthy country with an expanding economy. how far do you think this is going to go? what is going on, as your report indicates, what is unusual about these protists is that they are happening in poorer agrarian societies, deeply religious communities in iran. these tend to be the base of the iranian regime so it is particularly noteworthy that these are the communities rising up and they are rising up because they have seemed neither benefits of the nuclear deal or any economic prosperity in the last 30— a0 years. every year prices rise on essential goods, food prices in particular,

and it becomes very, very difficult to make ends meet and to get by. this is at the heart of the issues of these protists. despite what the us ambassador to the un is saying, you do not see this as a movement to overthrow the government but what as economic grievances? absolutely. at the height of the movement, you had to—3 the height of the movement, you had to — 3 million people on the streets of tehran, discernible leadership and clear demands. you do not have that here stop you have a few hundreds, sometimes thousands. in certain cities they are protesting and there is no leadership indigenous or outsider. we do not know what the demands of these protesters are. know what the demands of these protesters a re. what know what the demands of these protesters are. what is clear is

that they have a lot of grievances. mainly economic. some have taken the opportunity to voice their dissent on the leadership and the foreign policy. but most are economic, inequality, corruption which is so pervasive. one point people wanting to ask you, how does the us factor into these? what they are saying and doing? i think what president trump is saying rings hollow. he has more authority and we should all speak out as a universal right against the government but this president is no friend of the iranian people and they know that. the travel ban, the certifying that nuclear deal, siding

with saudi arabia on every issue in the middle east, blaming every conflict in the middle east at iran's doorstep. the people do not ta ke iran's doorstep. the people do not take the queues from donald trump and the do not have any illusions about his views on the iranian people. for more on the situation in iran, including more information about what has caused the conflict, simply head to our website. you can also download the news app. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news: there've been huge protests in pakistan against comments made by president trump. he accused pakistan of lying and of harbouring terrorists while receiving billions of dollars from the united states. the us has confirmed that it will withhold aid to pakistan. the us ambassador to the united nations, nikki haley, confirmed washington is withholding $255 million in aid from pakistan. 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. the head of the roman catholic church in congo has criticised the congolese government over the suppression of opposition protests on new year's eve. at least seven people were killed by security forces during demonstrations in the capital, kinshasa, on sunday. they were protesting against presidentjoseph kabila's refusal to step down from office. 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 a hundred metres down a cliff. sarah corker reports. the bus landed upside down on a rocky beach next to the pacific 0cean. more than 50 people were on board when it crashed. most of the pictures are too disturbing to show. witnesses said the coach collided with another vehicle and went over the edge of this cliff, plummeting more than 100 metres. it happened on a notorious devil stern on the pasamayo road, 50 kilometres from the coaches final destination, lima. the site is difficult to rescuers to reach. survivals were winched up a rope with some airlifted to local hospitals. translation: they told us

the bus had fallen off the cliff here in pasamayo. it was an accident. we thought our niece had left around that time. she went with a boyfriend. the two of them were in the same seat. the road is often listed as one of the world ‘s most dangerous roads and, despite the sheer drops, it is largely unprotected by safety fence. police say the death toll is likely to rise. sarah corker, bbc news. the chinese government has set itself an extraordinary target. it says it will lift a3 million people out of extreme poverty injust 3 years. the country's president, xijinping, says he recognises the pressing political need to close the gap between china's urban rich and some of its desperately poor rural communities. but some of the obstacles facing remote communities will be challenging, as our beijing correspondent, john sudworth, reports. 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. 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 a3 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. stay with us on bbc news.

still to come: would you trust a computer more than a consultant to diagnose a hospital scan? we report on the scientists turning to artificial intelligence. 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 0xfordshire 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. this is bbc news. the latest headline: the us praises demonstrators in iran, but ridicules claims by iran's supreme leader that the protests are being orchestrated by outside forces. as we reported earlier this week, china has introduced a ban on recycling many types of plastic wastes from abroad to try to reduce pollution. so what will happen now to all the plastic that is thrown away? almost half of what britain recycles

has been sent to china. 0ur 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. a vigorous shake separates bottles from paper and cardboard. they're also in demand. 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 all 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'll 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. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. a canadian man who was freed from captivity in afghanistan in october, has been arrested and charged with assault and unlawful confinement. joshua boyle, his wife and three children had been held prisoner for five years by a taliban—linked group. the alleged offences took place after their return to canada. mr boyle's lawyer says his client will contest the charges.

president trump has threatened to cut financial aid to the palestinians, saying the united states paid them hundreds of millions of dollars a year and got no appreciation or respect. in his latest twitter tirade, mr trump said the palestinians were no longer willing to talk peace with israel and asked why massive us payments should continue. with the new year well underway, we look ahead to 2018 and what will be the most pressing health stories to watch out. 0ur health correspondent tulip mazumdar has more. these are the top global health stories you are 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 for eight 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 complex politics 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 2,000 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 it desperately needed supplies through. and in bangladesh, the rohingya refugees continue fleeing into the country from neighbouring myanmar, because of the cramped and unsanitary conditions 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 for 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 multi—resistant tb, for example. this issue will be at the top of the agenda at a meeting of global health leaders

in thailand next month. scientists in oxford have developed a system which can diagnose some diseases more accurately than doctors. it uses artificial intelligence to analyse scans and, in clinical trials, outperformed human specialists for lung cancer and coronary heart disease. scans are modern medical miracles but still need a doctor to make a diagnosis, until now. scientists have developed artificial intelligence, or ai, systems to do the job better than the best doctors. the government's health care arm say ai systems are set to revolutionise medicine. 20 years from now, health care will have a eye embedded in a whole variety of different levels, and much of the healthcare system will be enabled by smart systems that help you identify people at risk, diagnose disease earlier, diagnose disease more precisely and identify who will benefit from what interventions. it changes the whole way

the paradigm operates. this is ultromics, the world's first cyber cardiologist. developed at the john radcliffe hospital in oxford, it's an ai system that can analyse heart scans. here, ultromics has identified areas of heart disease, shown in red. it then gives a recommendation, positive which means it believes there is a risk of the patient having a heart attack. doctors get one in five of their diagnoses wrong. the artificial intelligence system does much better. so how much could hospitals save using the new system? 12,000 heart scans alone are misdiagnosed each year. that costs the nhs £600 million. because artificial intelligence is more accurate, it could save £300 million, and that's just the start. ai can be used to diagnose many other conditions. the software tells asked the risk of it being cancerous.

we just click on it, and it tells us the risk is 1a%. this system looks for early signs of lung cancer. it can rule out harmless cases several months earlier than human doctors. it can save the nhs money and patients a lot of anxiety. what we have developed is software that will help us decide whether the patient has a nodule that we need to follow up, or is likely to be cancer, or is one we don't need to follow up. and then we can discharge the patient. britain leads the world in al and the systems currently being developed will be available for free to nhs hospitals next summer. pallab ghosh, bbc news, 0xford. watch this space, we are bound to be back to that story. much more on the website. a very windy, stormy night for some, and certainly a stormy

start to wednesday. met office amber be prepared warnings for the wind likely to expire during the early hours of wednesday. it's likely we could see disruptions, power cuts, maybe even trees down in places because of this, storm eleanor, which brought some very strong winds across parts of ireland during tuesday evening. it's continuing its journey eastwards. tightly packed isoba rs across much of the country, away from the north of scotland, which will have relatively light winds. but very strong winds to start wednesday 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 there. so likely to be some disruption from these severe gales for much of the uk through 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. but plenty of showers rattling through the morning and also into the afternoon. some of these showers will be heavy with some 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 as well, merging together to form longer spells of rain. 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 going to be quite a cool night to come. but then 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 or 13 degrees despite all the heavy rain. thursday, maybe a bit 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. we start to see increasing amounts of snow to the hills and then down 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 some snow showers in places and a return to overnight frosts. this is bbc news, the headlines: riot police are out in force in cities across iran as anti—government protests continue. at least 22 people have died since the demonstrations began seven days ago. america has called for a un security counncil meeting and denied claims it has been involved in organising the unrest. 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 a hundred metres down a cliff. president trump has threatened to cut financial aid to the palestinians, saying the us paid them hundreds of millions of dollars a year and got no appreciation or respect. mr trump said the palestinians were no longer willing to talk peace with israel. now it's time for hardtalk.