elsewhere, birmingham city's resurging is continue, thrashing liverpool 4—0, fourth win in five league games. also three games in the women's fa cup quarterfinals today, courtney sweetman kirk hat trick helping everton to a culpable 6—1win away at durham, they will face arsenal in the semifinals after the 1a time winners beat charlton. —— comfortable. two goals from jane ross helped manchester city to come from behind to beat sunderland. britain's simon yates has won the final stage of the tour of qatar loney, a result which meant that he finished fourth in the overall standings. alejandro valverde took the title to claim his second straight win in catalonia. egan pennel crashed towards the end of the final stage. —— tour of catalu nya. we the final stage. —— tour of catalunya. we will have or sport throughout the evening. one morning two sisters leave home in norway as they do every day

but by nightfall they have sent a message saying they are heading for the syrian war. their father races after them but they are already over the border. the norwegian writer asne seierstad tells the story in two sisters of a family convulsed by shock and the baleful influence of a war far away which overtook them in 2013. the girls, who were given fictitious names in the book, have never come home. welcome. this is a work ofjournalism but it takes you on quite a darkjourney. what did you discover that you did not know before this started? i learned a lot about how it is to grow up a somali girl

in norway and how it is to search for an identity when you stand with a leg in norway and a leg in somalia and how this journey to radicalisation is quite step—by—step. it doesn't happen overnight. it is really the small steps happening every day, and if they all go in one direction, even though they are small steps, one by one, you might end up at the border to syria and actually cross it. one of the surprising aspects to the story, no one appeared to be aware that this might happen to these girls, both in their teens. they were wearing hijabs to school, they woke up one morning and they left normally, but they did not come back. there was a sense of shock but why was it that no one suspected? some friends knew but the parents had no idea. it shows many things.

it shows that the parents had no idea what the girls were actually up to. what they were talking about with their friends? yes. they had been radicalised themselves. very often those who go do not come from fundamentalist families, and this is also sometimes a protest against their parents. what happened with these girls — they had a normal upbringing and they were able to do sport and they went swimming and they went to the beach and they lived like their norwegian classmates.

they were good at school and good in norwegian, but their mother was not integrated. she never bothered to learn norwegian and she was still in her head somehow in somalia. so when the girls became teenagers she became scared, she was losing the girls to norway and they were becoming too norwegian, dressing in skinnyjeans and t—shirts and she thought she needed to get them back into somali culture. so she hired a teacher of the koran which according to the teacher is the start of the nightmare. he is the one who starts to get them into being more observant and praying more, but... what does that tell you? it tells a lot — why it is important to integrate whole families, because this is a textbook case of radicalisation, those girls. it is a gripping story, almost a thriller. yes, for many reasons, also theirjourney to syria and the father who comes to look for them. he tried to stop them

but he was too late. they had gone across. he was a child soldier from somali so he was the right type to cross the border and join the front in order to be with the soldiers and try to find the girls. what happened, he found them and he was going to meet them, but two competing armies were meeting and the girls were in a car and one of them was shot and injured. he actually got to meet the other one, and he said, "finally, you will come back with me". and she said, "i'm sorry, i can't go". she said, "i married now, my life is now here". with islamic state? yes. these girls chose to be there and they never wanted him to rescue them. instead he got arrested by isis and put in prison and tortured. awful experience for the father whom you got to know very well. did you admire him? oh yes, i admired his persistence. he felt when the girls left, at first he thought it was a joke and they were coming back, but then he realised they really had gone to syria.

he felt a failure as a father and husband and the man of the family. the patriarch. his desperate search for them is admirable but also crazy. in the postscript of the book you wonder whether it is fair for you to write this story of two girls who you have never met. did you wrestle with that? yes, two girls who never consented and who might get angry at the book. when i started out, i was thinking, they're soon coming back, because that is what the father said — they were desperate to come back to norway. that was your expectation? yes, but it wasn't really true, that was wishful thinking. i thought i will do research and get the background story, their radicalisation told by others and then they will come back and tell their own story, but then they never came back. when you set out it was a normal

journalistic exercise? yes, but the backbone of this book, their voices, even though i never spoke to them. they are speaking, as far as the readers concerned, and yet they are not speaking to you. you have pasted together through layer upon layer of observation and also your imagination. that is the great thing about social media, things that would be lost can be there, black on white, on messenger, or those apps they use to communicate. they have a conversation which last for two and a half years with their brother, theirjourney into radicalisation and his journey into atheism. that is such an interesting... did you feel that you were on the journey with them?

you have enough material to follow in their steps. i even think they are more honest when they speak to their brother because this was never meant for publication. had they given an interview with me it would have been more measured. they would have polished it. one of the powerful aspects of the book... we have all become somewhat battered by the daily news reports from syria over many years. and it can dull the senses. but you forget you are talking about human beings. when you get the story about one family and two sisters and this extraordinary journey, the almost fanatical determination they had, you are reminded that when you see a news report there are families being torn apart.

yes, definitely. when you talk about the fanaticism, it is interesting to see how these girls, from being really ordinary norwegians, for them, religion played such a big role. without the religious dimension they couldn't have gone. finally, we don't know what has happened to the girls, whether they are alive or where they are, but if you had a chance to meet them now, what would you ask them? i would ask them to tell me everything that happened because we don't know, what has happened to hordes of young girls who went to syria. i've spoken to a researcher in london, there's a lack of information. what they spoke about with their brother in the book is a polished version, a version in the image

of islamic state, but what now? islamic state have lost all power and they must be living in hell right now if they are still in syria. so, really, the whole story, whether they are still fanatics or they changed their minds and they thought, "actually, i did have a good life in norway". how did i reject all that to be here in the desert? it is what has happened inside their heads that i would wonder about. it is a story with no end. asne seierstad, author of two sisters, thank you so much. thank you. the week and eventually got there for many of us, many more seeing a drier, brighter prospects through the bulk of sunday, notjust belper

that got the very best of it. there has to be an exception, in the far south—east, vale of cloud, residue of saturday hanging around, it is gone as we get into the wee small hours, underneath, pretty clear skies save for the north of scotland. what a widespread frost, not a particularly hard—won butjust a reminder that we are fairly early in the season. don't be at all surprised, even in towns and cities, if you get close to or even a tad below freezing. there will be a difference across southern counties. relative to colder conditions getting off into the north of scotland. monday start, bright enough, fairly crisp in one or two spots. and you keep the sunshine across northern and eastern parts for the greater part of the day, out west, things change, come tee time,

rain pushing into the west of northern ireland, pembrokeshire, maybe west of the tay, nothing wrong with temperatures for that time of year. that area of rain is all associated with weather fronts, draped around the area of low pressure, isobars, tuesday, rather wet and breezy affair for some, although the rain eventually becomes confined to northern and eastern parts, and still relatively mild across the south. further north, getting a shot of cold air coming in from the north sea, well, four, 5 degrees only, and as a consequence of that, much cooler conditions to be found towards the north, where we see snowfall totals mounting up over the higher ground. further south, into wednesday, front clears away, brighter skies falling behind, brighter skies falling behind, bright and blustery day on wednesday, a number of showers, a wee bit of ale in the heaviest of them. mixed bag to start of the new week, turning that wee bit colder

after double—figure temperatures, some rain at times, and a risk of snow, particularly on high ground. this is bbc news. the headlines at 8pm. thousands of protesters take to the streets of barcelona after former catalonian president carles puigdemont is arrested in germany. these are the latest pictures from barcelona as separatist supporters call for mr puigdemont‘s release. the australia cricket captain, steve smith, has been banned for one match by cricket's ruling body — the icc — over the ball—tampering scandal. the australian prime minister says he's shocked and disappointed. an extra 3,000 midwives are to be trained in england to ease staff shortages and improve care. a teenage girl is seriously injured after a car deliberately drives at children in glasgow. police are treating the incident as attempted murder. also in the next hour — lewis hamilton is denied victory

in the formula i season opener. sebastian vettel pushed the current world champion into second place in melbourne, despite hamilton qualifying