hello, this is bbc news, and martine croxall. we will be taking a look at the papers in a moment. first, the headlines. in leicester — emergency services deal with a major incident after an explosion and fire. more fighting between the syrian government and rebel groups in the damascus suburb of eastern ghouta. unconfirmed reports suggest a gas attack has caused fatalities. labour calls for the uk to remain in a customs union after brexit. the party says it would be best for trade and for the northern ireland border, and warns the government it may not have parliamentary support for its vision of brexit. this is a shift of policy. a show of unity between north and south korea as the winter olympics come to a close. pyongyang says it will sit down for talks with the united states. hello, and welcome to our look ahead

at what the papers will be bringing us at what the papers will be bringing us tomorrow. with us, charlie wells, deputy snapchat editor at the economist, probably the bestjob title we have ever announced! and rosamund urwin a close second, financial services chris bond and with the sunday times. nice to see you both. many of the front pages are already in. let's start with the financial times. it has a picture of ivanka trump watching the closing ceremony of the olympics in pyeongchang, alongside one of north korea's highest ranking generals. the guardian goes withjeremy corbyn revealing labour's brexit policy tomorrow, confirming he wants the uk tomorrow, confirming he wants the uk to remain in a customs union. concerns over the quality of milk post—brexit leads the front page of the i. the metro has a picture of the i. the metro has a picture of the building fire in leicester on its front page. the ambulance service say four people have been

taken joss service say four people have been ta ken joss buttler. service say four people have been takenjoss buttler. a chilling warning from the express. they say temperatures in parts of the uk could drop to —15 celsius, with snow and blizzards expected across the country. while the mirror says the cold snap dubbed the beast from the east could cause deaths and travel chaos. so, a fair old mix. we'll start with more brexit. the guardian is where we'll begin. corbyn brexit speech to put theresa may on the spot. we have kier starmer today, the shadow brexit secretary, rossman, talking about the idea of remaining within the customs union. but not the current one, something close to it. the operative word being a rather than the, verbal gymnastics. what he is not saying is that under labour we would remain in the single market, that will upset a

lot of his membership you obviously not only backed remain but would like to stay in their —— who obviously. this has put labour in a different position from the conservatives, and a lot of pressure on theresa may, because there are plenty of tory rebels who would maybe be tempted to create an alliance and not backed her approach of taking us out of the customs union. yes, and it wouldn't be the same one we are currently in. you have to be a member of the eu to be in this one, but they can concoct something similar. what a difference and a makes, talking about a customs union versus the customs union! all that said, customs unions are a good thing for the economy. and the way that they work is essentially they allow goods to move between countries without tariffs. and so right now, britain's economy is very heavily linked with europe's. and introducing tariffs and that would

slow down manufacturing, it would make places like dover or theoretically the irish border hard borders, and much more difficult for goods to travel between, and it would have a very negative effect on the economy. this is positive news thatjeremy the economy. this is positive news that jeremy corbyn seems to be moving in sort of a softer brexit direction. i wonder if this is a turning point. but, of course, labour are not turning point. but, of course, labourare not in turning point. but, of course, labour are not in power. although theresa may is running a minority government, supported by the dup. yes, and she is facing this sort of really tricky week. i mean, it's the big brexit week. she's making a speech on friday setting out what the future eu— uk relations look like. on top of that, she's also got the withdrawal treaty publication, and we're going to see obviously the conversation about the irish border, which i think we can get to. we will do in one second. that will be

dominant as well. all of these things that have been in the background and we are all very aware of will be right at the forefront this week. let's look at the ft. eu stands firm of northern ireland border in brexit withdrawal treaty. northern ireland and the concern about inflaming tensions if there we re about inflaming tensions if there were to be a hard border between northern ireland and the republic of ireland, it comes back into the news and then disappears again, doesn't it? everyone can agree that nobody wants to go back to the time before the good friday agreement, and nobody wants to see a hard border between the two countries. what is really interesting that you mention, this seems to be settled, and then it's not. and that speaks to the difficulty of securing this negotiation between the uk and the eu, it'sa negotiation between the uk and the eu, it's a dynamic process that can change over time. i have to say, i find it shocking that this wasn't talked about more in the run—up to the referendum. i know somebody who went to a meeting before the

referendum with their brexit supporting tory mp, and they asked him, you know, what would happen if we had a hard border between northern ireland and the republic? and he said, i haven't thought of that! i mean, this is extraordinary to me. my family come from ireland originally, so it was very much at the forefront of my mind, but i really cannot believe it was not talked about more. i remember maybe a year or two ago on this very programme, we had a story on a front page about northern ireland. and i rememberone of page about northern ireland. and i remember one of the commentators saying, it must be a slow news day! it is something people underestimated, how big this issue would be. here we have the european commission absolutely clear that there needs to be sort of regulatory alignment for northern ireland with the eu to stop that hard border reappearing. but for the dup, the eu to stop that hard border reappearing. but forthe dup, of

course as a result of this confidence and supply arrangement with theresa may's government, they don't want northern ireland to be treated any differently to the rest of the uk. that is utterly bizarre to me, they say they don't want a ha rd to me, they say they don't want a hard border but they are in favour of brexit and what appears to be a pretty ha rd of brexit and what appears to be a pretty hard brexit. you think, how can those two things go together? it doesn't make any sense to me, their position. hopefully there are lawyers that can work this stuff out and it would be some kind of fudge, wouldn't it? one of the that i keep hearing from brexiteers is that technology will solve this problem and we will have very advanced capabilities so even if there are different regulations between the two countries, a computer can check through to make sure everything is fine. what about all the people... i don't understand it, the people who cross over every day who work on one side and live on the other, or

people who own land on both sides, farmers would land on both sides. all of these elements that you describe can be got around by some creative thinking, can't they? we voted now injune 2016, and i haven't seen that many bright ideas yet being created on this. thank goodness we haven't got to come up with them! that is look at the ahye, another brexit related story. britain may be forced to take inferior us milk, white? it sounds like ina inferior us milk, white? it sounds like in a hypothetical free trade agreement between the us and the uk, the us, at least at this point, seems to be lobbying, or at least dairy lobbyists seem to be pushing to have the ability to selt lower quality milk here in the uk. and this is really interesting to me. and it's something that has a lot of americans scratching their heads about brexit as well. i know we are just talking brexit, brexit, brexit, but a lot of americans look to the

eu as very beneficial, and the regulations, especially related to consumer products, food and other goods that they put out keep consumers say. goods that they put out keep consumers say. in the regular so, united states, our regulations are not as strict and not as favourable to the consumer. here is an odd circumstance, in a hypothetical situation in which the uk and the us have some sort of a trade agreement, the uk is getting bad products. why would we need to bother taking this stuff? we don't have to. we hear, but my thought on this is that we are getting korine geggan —— we do not have the full uri here, we are getting korine chicken, milk from cows with other infections, this is the mad max style world that david davis promised we were not headed towards, the dystopian vision!m davis promised we were not headed towards, the dystopian vision! it is a really effective talking point for people who want to remain as close to the eu as possible. i remember during the debate in 2016 you would

hear these comments from brexiteers saying, oh, well like the eu can tout us how curved our cucumbers can be and how hot our testers can get. those are very specific consumer issues. —— how hot our toasters. here we are seeing a very specific consumer issue that will get people to potentially thinking the other direction. of course, we should have seen that in advance of the referendum. the whole idea of curvy bananas has never actually been true, has it was this is really a question of whether the american dairy industry is going to... lobbied us to change our rules. the financial times, lobbied us to change our rules. the financialtimes, president lobbied us to change our rules. the financial times, president xi sinn fein hangs his grip on power —— xi jinping. if they change the constitution, he can go on longer. he is doing a president putin, he did the exact same thing. in the russian constitution, you were only allowed bust my terms, eight years. putin took a little holiday and was

prime ministerfor a putin took a little holiday and was prime minister for a little while and went back to the presidency. now we are seeing a similar attempt in china, although not that route to it. so, the president is going to be formally re—elected this coming week. and when the national people's co ng ress week. and when the national people's congress meets, and he now wants obviously to solidify his position there for a lot longer. yes, and a lot of western democracies have wa nted lot of western democracies have wanted to push china more towards the sort of systems that we have. it doesn't seem to be headed in that direction at all—star law a lot of china watchers were very hopeful when xijinping china watchers were very hopeful when xi jinping took power, that he would follow the course of his predecessor and stick to them all is. the rules answers session were put in place to avoid chaos. after mars udon and a series of very turbulent issues, it was agreed in the late 80s that we need to have a china, china needed to have two

terms, they needed to limit power and have more peaceful transitions. it seems like xi jinping, who has, for most of his term, and his predecessor has been talking about how to create stability, trying to avoid chaos and focus on building the economy, this seems like something of a shift, he is starting to focus a lot more on power and solidifying power. that is disconcerting and also a little bit scary, because now that he could theoretically be president for life, his policies might change. he is more powerful than a lame duck president who has one year left. he can pursue different policies than he could. but the point is, this is just one of his three jobs. he is actively also party general secretary, which he could be for life. and that doesn't have a term limit. and then he is also top of the military. it's only a limit on this one. he must have more hours in the days and i have! let's look at

the and the, an extraordinary blast of cold weather. it sounds like commuters were of cold weather. it sounds like commuters were angry of cold weather. it sounds like commuters were angry to find that their railjourneys were disrupted. the figure that keeps being thrown around is —15 degrees. parts of britain are going to get very, very cold. it sounds like transport is certainly going to be effective. the hilarious bit is that they have done this before, the snow has fallen before it has even gone and 0 degrees. they have already decided to cancel the trains. before a single flake has fallen! you can understand why people are not happy about that. it rather adds to the feeling in britain that our rail services are not up to much if they can't cope with leaves or snow or any of the kind of normal things. can't cope with leaves or snow or any of the kind of normal thingsm is dull better than american

trained! the daily mirror is saying the same thing, beware the beast from the east, it will kill! this is the other issue, the number of winter deaths. it does cause... lets not forget, this is going to be pressure on the health service, which has already had an incredibly difficult winter. well, you know, people have been waiting on trolleys. obviously you would hope that as the weather got better these things with ease. but actually now they are saying we are going to have horrible weather, more pressure on the nhs. it speaks to this, the gated issue of naming storms. there isa gated issue of naming storms. there is a public health and safety issue that suggests that sometimes naming storms is good, it causes more public awareness, people can talk about the beast from the east and the newspapers can blast it across their front pages. but you can't go too far. if you create too much awareness, it can look like an over reaction and people will stop responding to allow from safety procedures. it looks like it is

going to be pretty rough in some places, whether it has got a name or not. but the papers for this hour, but charlie and rosamond will be back again at 11:30pm for another look at the papers. the camera is quite busy tonight, isn't it?! of, it's deliberate, of course it is! next, meet the author.