guns — but will he still think the same tomorrow? students demand tighter gun laws, the head of the national rifle association weighs in. if these so—called european socialists take over the house and the senate and, god forbid, they get the white house again, our american freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed for ever. sorry, we have got a problem with newsnight. good thing i didn't leave. while we decide what we are going to do, i am going to do a quick old sku —— old school impromptu paper review. how about that? let's start slightly randomly. there you go. there is the daily express. just making this up as we go along. it says eu migrants says daily express. talking about the fa ct daily express. talking about the fact that on september last year that saw 130,000 eu migrants get back home, the highest level for the

decade. however, what it doesn't say is that title is that overall, immigration went up and so we are actually acquiring more people but a lot of them are from outside the eu because restrictions are not going to change necessarily to them, are they? lets look at the financial timesjust quickly. here they? lets look at the financial times just quickly. here on the top, a photograph of one of the many university lecturers who decided to ta ke university lecturers who decided to take strike action today. it is over changes to their pensions, which they say are going to mean that some people are worse off by tens of thousands of the year. —— tens of thousands of the year. —— tens of thousands of the year. —— tens of thousands of pounds per year. of course the children still want to make sure they are still getting taught, they are spending £9,000 each a year on tuition fees. the

daily mirror is in campaigning mode. your country needs you. a number of children who have had, or are in need of transplant operations because tomorrow mps are going to vote for a change, or vote about whether there should be a change to how organ donations are decided study at the moment you have to opt in to be an organ donor but tomorrow there will be a vote in the house of commons to ask if we should actually t commons to ask if we should actually opt out of it. it is automatically assumed that we are happy to donate u nless we assumed that we are happy to donate unless we say otherwise. i think we have properly come to the end of that. is that necessary? we are going to have a look at something to do with space in a minute. and in cornwall. i am waiting to be told exactly what this is. in the

meantime... don't you love this? i will tell you at —— i will tell you that christopher hope's story. a ban on plastic straws looms as the big christopher hope interviewed michael gove and said after brexit, when we have got the opportunity to do so and we are not confined to laws and rules set out by the eu, we could be seeing a ban on plastic straws in this country. jim hillyer of session in cornwall set up 60 years ago, it is the oldest satellite station in the world and our plans have been announced to put it firmly on the by turning it into a space communications based to track missions to the moon and mars. newsreel: upon the fantastic dish aerial of cornwall‘s goonhilly downs...

since the 1960s, goonhilly has been making history, like receiving the first pictures from the telstar satellite. ..goonhilly marks an impressive step forward in international communication. and now this earth station will be the first place in britain which can direct missions into deep space. this is goonhilly dish number six. this antenna is 32 metres in diameter... also known as merlin. it rotates 360 degrees... this one was built in the 1980s. it beamed live aid around the world, but now an £8 million upgrade means it will be able to do much, much more. we will be able to send commands to spacecraft around the moon and around mars, and also receive data coming back from the moon and mars. so in 2020 when a mars rover is on the surface of mars and detects life, we could send that data back and be received by this antenna here.

direct to cornwall? direct to cornwall. and cornwall‘s ambitions to join the space race don't end here. newquay airport. today, passengers were flying to dublin and manchester, but soon it could be much further. because this county, which relies on tourism, wants to take things to the next level. the airport is bidding to turn its two—mile runway into a commercial spaceport, hoping for a share of a multibillion pound industry. the millions for goonhilly are coming from the local enterprise partnership, and some ask if it's the best use of public money right now. 0ne local baker delivering space—themed pasties today believes this poor county needs to aim for the stars. the perception of cornwall from a lot of people is that it's a beautiful place, which it undoubtedly is, but we also need a thriving future for people. it would be great to see better high—tech jobs being created in a very much a long—term project. more customers for you. that would be nice.

pasties and a giant dish. the new cornwall. john kay, bbc news, goonhilly. thousands —— thousands of university lecturers have started strike action over planned changes to their pensions, which they say could leave them thousands of pounds a year worse off in retirement. students‘ studies could be disrupted for up to a month — if the all the planned strikes go ahead. 0ur education correspondent elaine dunkley reports from leeds. at leeds university, lecturers out on the picket line. thousands of lectures have been cancelled on campuses across the uk, the message — "give us the pensions we paid into, or there will be mass disruption". we're expecting things to grant to a halt, really. forms won't be signed, classes won't be taught, research deadlines won't be met. we're likely to lose about £10,000 a year. now, vice chancellors are earning about £250,000 to £280,000 a year,

so i have questions about why the money shouldn't be coming out of their salaries and not out of our pensions. the university said a £6 billion deficit in the scheme means it's unsustainable, and could only be maintained by making cuts to jobs and research. universities say they have offered a good deal, but lecturers are not convinced. currently, we have what is called a defined benefit scheme, which means we put money in and we will definitely get a certain amount back when we retire. the defined contribution scheme which is being offered means that what we end up with in the pot will depend on the vagaries of the market and other things, and it means we can't be certain of what we'll have. left unresolved, more lectures could be cancelled and exams affected. you pay over £9,000 in fees. do you feel short—changed by all of this? the students support their lecturers, but are also worried about their future.

more than 80,000 students have signed petitions calling for fees to be reimbursed. when we signed up to university, it was specified in the curriculum that we would have a certain number of hours of contact time with our lecturers. anything short of that is essentially a breach of contract. we worked out that it works out at about £1,150 worth of lost contact time. but we fully support our lecturers in going on strike. this dispute is being fought on university campuses across the uk, which included marches in cardiff... belfast, and glasgow. how it's resolved will have a significant impact on the retirement of thousands of lecturers, and the future of millions of students. elaine dunkley, bbc news. a six—year—old boy and his two—year—old brother have both died after a hit—and—run incident in the west midlands. the crash happened on thursday afternoon in coventry. a 22—year—old man and a 41—year—old woman have been arrested by police

on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. in venezuela, hundreds, if not thousands of people to train spent it kidneys are at risk of losing the organs due to the country ‘s chronic shortage of medicines. from an exclusive report, vladimir hernandez reports from the capital. her fate is out of her hands. for more than a decade, judith has had a transplanted kidney, but due to the severe shortage of medicines, for four months she's been unable to get the drugs to keep the kidney going. her doctor says he has about 700 more patients in hospital, also facing the imminent loss of a transplanted kidney. for venezuelans, the hunt

for medicines is desperate. most drugs are out of stock, and even when you find them, there's another problem. this person was looking for several types of medicines here, but she could only find this one. these are two boxes she needs per month, but it cost her 12 million bolivars, which means about a third of what she makes in a whole year. i've met other people around this pharmacy and they are saying there's no chance they could afford something like this. critics say this is an example of the failure of the so—called socialist revolution, but the venezuelan president says us—led sanctions prevent him from importing medicines.

things are worse away from big cities. this is apure in the south, near the amazon forest, and one of the poorest states in the country. here, i gained very rare access to a public hospital, a place where the government does not allow the media in. this baby is seven months old and malnourished. the scabs on his head and body were caused by an illness related to malnutrition. his mother cannot afford his medicines once she leaves hospital. children like these are having to get, for instance, antibiotics for a price which could be ten times the monthly minimum wage. and the people who live in poor communities like these are unable, absolutely unable to buy these medicines. little 0riana has an uncertain future. she needs surgery to treat her lung failure. but her family can't afford the antibiotics

to get her ready for it. a simple drug, out of the hands of many venezuela ns. for 0riana, as for many venezuelans, lack of medicine is an almost certain death. vladimir hernandez, bbc news, caracas. the big tech companies — such as google, amazon, and facebook — could face much higher tax bills in the uk, if ministers go ahead with some new policy options. they've told the bbc that they're considering proposals to tax the companies on their sales revenue, rather than their profits. but the government has been warned against taking action that isn't co—ordinated globally, as our economics editor kamal ahmed explains. they are some of the biggest

companies in the world, and many of them count their profits in the billions of pounds, if not their tax bills. that could be about to change, as the government signals it will launch a new attempt at raising more tax from these global tech giants. the minister driving the move told me that these successful companies, used by millions of people, would pay higher bills. we recognise that there are businesses generating substantial value within the uk, who we don't believe are currently paying a fair rate of tax. but that is quite different from saying they're not paying the taxation that they should be paying. and fair tax means, in your mind, higher tax? it will in the case of a number of those businesses, absolutely. the companies make clear that they play by the rules, but the fact is that the treasury wants to change them. let's take google as one example. it has sales or revenues in the uk of over £1 billion. it makes profits in the uk of £1119

million, and pays tax on those profits of £38 million. but if it paid tax on its sales, a much larger number, its tax bill would rise. the government has certainly opened the door to new taxes for those big global technology companies, but this is notjust a debate raging in britain. here in france, the government wants to increase taxes on those global digital giants. there is a similar argument in germany. it's a race, but it's a race with risks. if every country follows their own path on taxes, might there be the start of a tax war? and the organisation charged with stopping that is based right here in paris. the 0ecd is concerned about britain's and other countries‘ proposals. a tax on turnover is not a great idea. it may be the last resort, a political measure or stopgap measure, but it's not a great idea. apple's hq in america, and here's the point.

most of these companies are american, and that is where they pay the bulk of their taxes. this would be a fundamental change. they are certainly willing to pay theirfair share or their responsible share of tax. the risk of the uk behaving or acting in a unilateralfashion would be that there could be the risk of double taxation for some of these companies, and then i think you would see a lot of money spent on lobbying to protest against that. it has been a tortuous battle. what does fair tax look like? this is the latest government attempt to answer that controversial question. kamal ahmed, bbc news. now on bbc news, stephen sackur interviews the pyschologist and writer stephen pinker in hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. this programme, like so many others in the churn of 24/7 news, tends to focus on people and places

facing problems and challenges. more often than not we hold the powerful to account for things that went wrong, not right. are we missing the bigger picture about the world we live in? my guest today, the psychologist and writer, steven pinker, certainly thinks so. his new book, enlightenment now, is a paean to human progress driven by reason and science. just how convincing are his reasons to be cheerful? theme music plays. steven pinker welcome to hardtalk.

thank you. this idea of the enlightenment is very dear to your heart. can you briefly, if you will, just capture for me what you mean by the enlightenment. it refers to the intellectual movement in the second half of the 18th century that put a premium on reason as opposed to authority, tradition, dogma, charisma, on science, on the attempt to explain the world by testing hypotheses and on humanism, on the wellbeing of individual humans as the ultimate good as opposed to the glory of the nation or the tribe, or perpetuation of the faith. and a movement borne out of european thought but is it your proposition that it captures universal values? european and also american, but i guess that's an offshoot of europe. although every idea has to come from somewhere, so it is european in that sense, but it is based on reason which humans are universally capable and it's based

on universal human interests. everyone wants a long life, everyone wants to be healthy, almost everyone wants knowledge and education. people would prefer to live in safety rather than in danger, all things being equal. science and reason have, i think it's fair to say, underpinned so much of human thought and human scientific and technological developments in recent centuries but is it your feeling that this enlightenment is under threat? it absolutely is and in fact it has been since it was formulated. the counter—enlightenment of the 19th century arose very quickly after the enlightenment. the romantic movement, the glorification of blood and soil, romantic militarism, the idea that the individual is merely a cell in a super organism, consisting of their nation

or their race or their ethnic group. and we are seeing a resurgence of counter—enlightenment thinking in authoritarian populism, in trumpism in the united states, in the populous movements in eastern europe. by saying that, you are sort of suggesting that trumpism in the unite states is, what, as far as you are concerned, and utterly illogical, counter—productive political movement. i so would argue that it is counter—productive, indeed. although, talking about the intellectual roots of trumpism sounds like a bit of an oxymoron but in fact it does have a pedigree. he was advised by people like stephen bannon and steve miller and michael anton who consider themselves intellectuals, who are influenced by a counter—enlightenment tradition and you can see some of the themes of trumpism, such as that there's an inherent virtue in a particular people, and that whose soul is embodied in a strong leader, who needn't be encumbered by the milestone

of an administrative state, which it voices their goodness directly. these are themes that run through counter—enlightenment. it would seem to me that donald trump's politics is a politics driven by emotion, driven by an appeal to a person's gut instincts rather than necessarily their rational brain. and he connects. the skill of donald trump is that, unlike many of his political rivals, he found and continues to find a way to connect with a very significant part of the american population. indeed and certainly emotional impulses such as tribalism, such as authoritarianism, that is vesting power in a charismatic leader, reasoning by anecdote rather than by facts and data — that is the compelling story about the american who is mowed down by an illegal immigrant breaking a traffic law — this is an appeal to our not so rational side... but if trump isn't an aberration,

he is not a bleep, he is part of a long line of politicians that, while you would say the last few centuries have been a triumph of science and reason, many would say the last few centuries have absolutely shown us that the human species is often driven by gut instinct, by emotion and by feelings that are not anything to do with science or reason. indeed. in fact, one of the misconceptions about enlightenment thinkers is they assumed we are all rational. that we're all like mr spock from the original star trek. but enlightenment thinkers like hume, like spinoza, like adam smith, like the american founders, they were avid students of human nature and they were all

too aware of human flaws and they proposed norms and institutions that were work arounds for our darker impulses so those impulses are always with us and at various times in history they do predominate. but if i understand your most recent book, enlightenment now, to warfare, that really things are rather wonderful on our planet today and that is not the way many people in both the developed and developing worlds actually see and experience of the world? that is right. as long as tragedy and problems have not been reduced to zero, there will always be enough of them to fill the news and since our sense of risk and probability is driven by anecdotes and images

and narratives rather than by data, unless we actually see the data, we can miss the fantastic progress that has been made. not uniformly, progress isn't magic... we cannot surely dismiss half of all syrians, that is 12 million people, being displaced on their homes, many hundreds of thousands killed. we cannot dismiss that as some sort of unimportant bleep in the data. absolutely not but we do have to realize that, because of our rising moral standards, we care more about people than our ancestors did so things can can often look worse even though we're more compassionate... how can you measure compassion? how can you be sure we are more compassionate — this generation in the early 21st century, than any other humans? you're right, i do not have data on compassion but, if you look at just the way events are described and categorised, people forget that there were greater number of displacements

during the bangladesh war of independence, during the partition of india, the korean war had far more casualties than the war in syria. this is not to minimise the horrific suffering of the syrian people but the imperative to recognise the suffering of people in earlier eras and to realise that we're not stuck with the amount of suffering that we see. just as earlier generations reduced the amount of warfare — not to zero — but we can eliminate the wars that are taking place now. it emboldens us with the realisation that these are not utopian aspirations, that displaced people and wars and refugees can be reduced. i come back to the point that most people on this earth do not think the way that you do, partly because they are not trained in the way that you have been trained, but also you are driven by — your book is full of it —

by big data, meta data and you crunch the numbers and you take a very sort of high overview of the way the world works. most folks do not do that. they relate to their own experience and their own perception. howjust wonder how much value there is in you telling us all that we should be more cheerful, we should be more positive and optimistic about the human condition, when it does not match reality for most of us? that is why we have education, that's why we have persuasion, that's why we have discourse, that's why we have debate. in order to counter our intuitions and our impulses which are often highly misleading. that's one of the great lesson of psychology in the second—half of the 20th century. a lot of our intuitions are systematically biased. something that can be amplified... but you have bias also, don't you? we all do. you are the product of your nurture just as i am of mine and any body else in this world, watching on tv or listening on the radio

is of theirs. when people today express doubt about expertise and they sometimes say, "you know what, you can prove almost anything with statistics," they have a point, don't they? no, you cannot prove almost any thing with statistics, at least not if you do it honest but who is to define honest? this is one of those perpetuating spirals of argument because in the end we all make choices — you make choices about the data you put into your numbercrunching computers, you decide what particular facet of the human condition to profile, these are all subjective. then you challenge me and observers get to hear the various sides and they can see who has the most persuasive case. the fact that science has progressed shows that, despite human disagreements, despite the fact that all of us are blinded by our own biases, over the long run, with free speech, with open debate, with the ability to challenge people, with the onus to provide data to support your beliefs, over the long run, we can

approach understanding and explanation and truth. no question i think that everybody would agree that data on global hunger and poverty eradication does suggests that, for most people in the world, in that very material sense, things are better today than they have ever been, for most people but, if you take the most advanced society, the united states, your idea of progress runs into real trouble because for generations the middle class in the united states of america has seen their living standards stagnate and, in some years, actually decline. and there is a feeling when you look at the polls, and americans say that, by a clear majority, for years they have felt their country to be on the wrong track, that in the most advanced society in the world, your theory of the eternal march to progress has been thwarted. forget eternal march to progress — not eternal, not a march.

eco progress. problems are inevitable. we solve them as they arise. on average, we make progress but it is not some inexorable force. the us is a peculiar case because even though people think of it as the prototypical advanced western democracy, in many ways the us is an outlier, a laggard among western democracies... you cannot have an outlier that is the most important and powerful economy in the world. it sets a standard and it is in many ways a country that the rest of the world looks to and if the message from the united states is that the values you espouse, the science, the reason, the humanism can take you so far but then things start to go wrong, then that is a message that is important to the entire world. it is an unfortunate message and the united states is in many ways a backward country compared to it's western peers. the united states has higher measures of crime, of child mortality,

ogf maternal mortality, lower lifespans, greater drug use, more abortions. it doesn't meet any measure of social pathology. it is ahead of most countries of the world. but behind most of the countries in western europe and the anglosphere... why and how does it fit into your theory? the united states is an ambivalent enlightenment country because though its constitution was perhaps the most famous product of the enlightenment, and the declaration of independence, and its founders — mathison, jefferson, adams, were men of the enlightenment — in many ways the country itself has been divided. it's almost been two countries. there is an enlightenment country, there is also a more traditional culture of honour, more heavily represented in the south than the west, in which the ethic is that, instead you having disinterested institutions that meet outjustice and secure social welfare, it is up to the individual defending himself and his family by the justifiable use of violence if necessary and a lot of american politics has always struggled between the culture of honour and the culture

of the enlightenment. and so it is a peculiar example of a western democracy. he did not like my phrase, "the eternal march of progress" and i can see why but it does strike me that there is a tendency toward i could say triumphalism or hubris in your theory in that you know what you believe to be the most important values to humanity today, they are those born out of the enlightenment, and you seem to be convinced that, as long as we continue to adhere to them, we are on, frankly, a 1—way ticket to better times. francis fukuyama, the historian, looked at what happened after the fall of the berlin wall in the triumph of sort of capitalism and markets over communism and he concluded that we could celebrate the end of history. and i just wonder whether there is the same sort of danger that you're declaring the triumph of a particular set of intellectual values, when those values, whether it be from russia or china or elsewhere, are being challenged

in a concerted and important and significant way. they certainly are being challenged, that's why i would not allude to an inexorable march of progress. it's not a mysticalforce. the end of history was a brilliant bit of marketing. well, up to a point. up to a point. that's true. it's now a millstone that hangs around francis fukuyama's neck. in defence of fukuyama, the number of democracies has increased since the end of history was published. and yet freedom house, when it studies democracies every year, says that over the last 12 years more countries have experienced a regression in their democratic values than those that have experienced an advanced. freedom house is one of the more pessimistic measures of democracy. freedom house is also an activist organisation and activist

organisations are always biased towards a crying crisis and other indicators of democracies. so there's certainly been a deceleration. but freedom house has a somewhat alarmist picture. when you think about it, in our youth we both had 31 democracies in the early 1970s, half of europe was behind the iron curtain. there was barely a democracy in latin america. taiwan and the philippines, indonesia, greece was a military dictatorship, spain and portugal were under the control of fascism. it's true that there has been a push back in countries like russia, turkey, poland and venezuela. but still the overall trend continuing through the end of history has been towards democratisation. in your world view, is religion nothing more than an aberration when it enters the realm of public policy and governance? well, it's certainly...

theistic belief, belief in a god who can wreak miracles, that's something that should be kept out of politics, yes. in the united states we have the separation of church and state, and i think this is an excellent principle, yes. we should not base policy on miracles. do you think you have too rosy a view of human nature? oh, i'm well—equipped to deny that charge. i wrote a book called the blank slate: the modern denial of human nature in which i make probably the strongest case that's been made in a popular book that human nature is saddled with flaws such as dominance, egocentrism, revenge, magical thinking and so on. i am the last person that can be accused of having too rosy a view of human nature. but i do think human nature is a complex system and together with our darker impulses, there are, and i hear i stole the phrase from abraham lincoln, the better angels of our nature, sides of human nature such as reason, such as empathy,

such as self—control, such as moral norms that are in constant tension with our darker sides and it's up to our institutions and our norms to empower our better angels, the parts of human nature that over the long run can lead to institutions that tame our inner demons. your academic discipline is psychology rather than history, for example. i want to quote to you something that perhaps puts an historical sense of perspective onto your thinking about the enlightenment, it comes from a commentator here in the uk responding to your book, jenni russell, she says, "every civilisation has believed in its in vulnerability until it actually falls." she says, "from the greeks to the romans, the mongols, the ming dynasty, each failed because it couldn't grasp its own flaws or the threats to it until it was too late." "and pinker‘s blindspot is believing that the appeal of liberal democracies sees and

the enlightenment values that underpin them are so powerful that they need only to be spelt out to be accepted." yeah, no. if anything i would identify the blindspot among people who confuse the existence of progress with some force toward inevitability or indestructibility. people are so unused to even conceiving of the fact of progress that they can't distinguish a factual claim, like things are better than they were several decades ago, or several centuries ago, with these mystical notions of vulnerability or inexorable marches. they're not the same thing. you can acknowledge that we live longer without saying that we live

in a utopia, that we're going to live forever. what about science, you are a scientist of a sort, but if one looks your claims for technology and science and the degree to which they continue to deliver us to a better place, one can quite quickly counter with obviously climate change, being a massive global problem which science, for the moment, seems incapable of coming up with a clear solution. one could look at the degradation of our environments, particularly the oceans and microplastics right now. one could say that your faith in science looks misplaced. all of the facts you mentioned of course are scientific discoveries, and so without science... they're discoveries of the harm science is doing. that's what technology has done. the way to deal with them is to understand what caused them and what can reverse them. that's why you have to marry human ingenuity and science and human motivation and science. right now we don't appear to have the motivation to undertake the massive international cooperative effort to tackle these problems of technology. we do, not enough, but we do. the paris climate accord

certainly shows the world, again with one conspicuous exception, can come to an agreement. the exception is pretty darned important. although remember that the pushing back on our president, and by the way we cannot withdraw from the accord for another three years anyway, by which time it's possible president trump will be a lame duck and his successor will reinstate the american participation, but individual states, individual corporations, the rest of the world and the rest of the world of course can push back against the united states if it violates the paris agreement by putting tariffs on american goods based on their carbon emissions. so the acts of one president won't necessarily undo the progress, although they might. when you talk like that i'm just reminded that the historian mal ferguson said at times he is reminded of doctor pangaloss when he listens to you. doctor pangaloss. ..

that's a mistake because pangaloss was a pessimist. he said, "we live in the best of all possible worlds." someone who believes in human progress believes the world can be a much better place than we have now. you're much more optimistic than doctor pangaloss? pangaloss was a defender of theodicy, the belief that god was incapable of making the world any better than the way we find it today. so just go back to climate change, we are not on track to solving the problem of climate change, there's no doubt. i'm not an optimist in the sense that everything will all work out. we're almost out of time but in essence you almost are. here's my invitation to you at the end of this programme, some people today look at where we are with climate change, for example, or indeed with nuclear proliferation, and in particular the nuclear stand—off right now with donald trump's united states administration and north korea, and they think to themselves, we've probably never been closer to seeing existential threats to humanity come to reality, but your worldview would suggest we have it within us always to avert those sorts of existential threats?

i think there's an imperative to see our way through to avoiding the existential threats, to treating these as problems to be solved, not to declare that we're doomed so we may as well enjoy life while we can, but to put the pressure where it has to be placed for there to be changes of policies, changes of administration, so we mitigate the severest threats. and your life, your experience suggests to you that there is every good reason to continue to believe human beings will get to where they need to be? well, not that there's every reason but there is a reason, not that it's inevitable, who knows what the probabilities

are, but that it is possible and therefore there is the imperative to take the steps that have the greatest chance of solving the problems. we have to end there but steven pinker, thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thanks for having me. thank you very much. to use. were talking for a while now about how cold the weather is on the way and i think that cold is going to really start to bite as we head to really start to bite as we head to the next few days. it has already been a bit chilly. some of us have seen been a bit chilly. some of us have seen some snow, been a bit chilly. some of us have seen some snow, this picture can toss from the scottish borders from one our weather watchers but it will get a lot colder than that as we eventually get into the grip of some

really, really cold air which is sitting across siberia. we are not really bringing that in our direction just yet but you might well think it is cold enough already, particularly as to the rest of the night we see temperatures dipping below freezing and that is really see the blue colours on the chart. quite a widespread frost to ta ke chart. quite a widespread frost to take us into tomorrow morning. it should be a bright start. some good spells of sunshine around this topic a bit more cloud creeping in across eastern england, that could squeeze out the odd light rain shower but for most places it should be fine with a good deal of sunshine this is how our high—resolution model looks as we go through the afternoon tomorrow. large areas of clear skies across scotland, northern ireland and north—west england, meaning sunshine. a bit more cloud through england, maybe the odd light shower but to the midlands and the south—west there should be sunny skies to take us to the day tomorrow. that will be a big feature as we head into the weekend. this area of high pressure across

scandinavia becomes increasingly dominantand as scandinavia becomes increasingly dominant and as that squeezes through southwards, it will increase the strength of that easterly wind. a biting wind on saturday, quite a lot of sunshine overhead and blue skies for many, still some areas of cloud floating around and the thermometer might read five, seven degrees but it will feel colder than that. on the face of sunday, a similar looking day and quite a lot of sunshine around but at this stage it looks more likely it will bring ina big it looks more likely it will bring in a big lump of crop cloud from the north sea and that will come around north—east scotland, england and as it does it could well introduce some wintry flurries. those temperatures continue to give away. but it is as we get on to next week that we bring the really cold area now direction, from siberia on this easterly wind towards the uk. so we are going to see temperatures really struggling. the temperatures i am showing you here for monday and tuesday at the absolute daytime highs. temperatures might briefly touched those values, they will get a lot colder than that

at night but even by day sunspots will struggle to get above freezing with the increasing chance of some snow. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: after the florida school shooting, america's gun lobby hits back, saying tragedy is being used for political gain. to stop a bad guy with a gun it ta kes a to stop a bad guy with a gun it takes a good guy with a gun. north korea will send its intelligence chief, believed to have plotted attacks on the south, to the olympics closing ceremony. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme: we meet the philippines‘ pagpag collectors, who scavenge for food in rubbish dumps. and it‘s a chinese new year tradition, but who actually owns that red envelope money?