apologised and said he takes "full responsibility" for his role in the ball—tampering scandal. david warner said he let his country down and made a "bad decision" in the recent test match against south africa. and he admitted he might never play for the team again. the palestinian president has blamed israel for the deaths of 16 demonstrators, after violence flared along gaza's border. mahmoud abbas called on the un to take immediate action to protect palestinians against what he called ‘escalating daily aggression‘ by israel. russia has announced that it's expelling diplomats from 23 more countries, sharply escalating a row over the poisoning of a former spy living in britain. an unofficial tally put the number of expelled diplomats at 59. now on bbc news it's time for the travel show. my name is tony giles. i'm from england. i'm totally blind and severely deaf in both ears.

and i'm travelling around the world trying to visit every country. we're in the old city! israel is country 124. i see a place with my senses — i see a place by the sounds, by the smells, by the textures. the hustle and bustle of people shouting, buy this, buy this, come and look at this! i feel the atmosphere, the energy, the buzz. i was born with my eye condition, so i don't have any vision apart from sunlight sensitivity. and i've gradually gone deaf as i've got older and i am now 80% or severely deaf in both ears but i use digital

hearing aids. i travel alone, because it's the biggest challenge i can get. and the travelling by myself... excuse me! ..i get to interact with more people. if i travel with someone, particularly someone sighted, they would be doing all the work, they'd be doing all the guiding, and i would not get to touch and find as many things as i do buy myself. today i'm going to catch a bus into the old city to go to the western wall. western wall? western wall, yeah. ok, let's go. i will help you. 0k. let me hold your arm like that. where are you from? i'm from england. huh? england! i was lucky that the bus driver was nearby waiting,

so it was really easy to find the bus. yeah, i've got it... let go, let go. new orleans was the first place i went to by myself — a foreign city by myself. didn't know where i was going, i was blind, and ijust froze. and then i took a couple of deep breaths and said to myself, "tony, this is what you want — if you don't want it go home." a couple more deep breaths, turn left, walk down the street, and the rest is history. excuse me, are you hear me...? this is your stop station. my stop? yes. you can get off. 0k, thank you. you want any help? i'm good. just trying to get my bearings, trying to work out which way the traffic is going, and if i can use the sunlight, but i can't sense any

sun at all. i have to be careful going down the steps, because they're all marble and slippery and worn so i have to go slowly and take care. no, no, it's ok. yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. all right, thank you. two people came to try and help me but they were a bit aggressive, they just grabbed me, which is not the correct way to help — it's a bit frightening. if people want to help, and many people do, ideally you would want them to speak to you and say "hello, can i help?" but obviously not everyone speaks english. so if they don't, then touch you gently on the hand, on the arm, but not pull and not grab, ideally. you have to be patient, you get lost all the time. it's very difficult if you're looking for something specific when you can't see.

because obviously you can't pinpoint it. excuse me? you might get ten people walk past and then someone will stop, "are you lost, do you need help?" and then you can interact with them — that's how it works. excuse me, is this damascus gate? yeah. straight in front of me, no? 0k. want to help? yeah. i like this! i like the atmosphere and the smells. and it's all close, and compact. it feels authentic. i'm going to the western wall, and on the way i'm going

to hopefully explore some of the via della rosa, which is stages of the cross thatjesus walked. good morning, how are you? good good how are you wanted you want to see my shop souvenir? i could have a brief look, why not? yes? come on. what do you sell? very good! laughs. beautiful! yeah. this is coffee. coffee yea h ? ok, i get this. about $3. that's five? that's two five yeah? yes. two five. thank you. i probably write a blog once a week, so i document myjourneys,

and my travels, and i want to share it with the world, really, and try and inspire people to believe in themselves, and they can overcome whatever their challenges are. and i also add pictures i've taken. originally i did it because i thought it would just be funny, someone seeing a blind person take photos. it's an extra way of sharing, i can show my family and friends and stuff, that's the idea, to try and share with everyone. thank you. excuse me! take the hand! people... don't leave him!

over here... ok, thank you. someone on a motorbike coming through, that's not very never. hello. looking for the station of the cross... this way, this way... this is the station of the cross? come back. 0k... then to the left... this is where he put his hand, here. this is where christ... up, up, up, up... to the right... yes, exactly. 0h, 0k! thank you! welcome. apparently i'm at one of the stages of the cross, wherejesus put his hand on the wall and lent against a wall. defined handprint, very smooth, also quite rigid, quite bumpy. it's a lovely texture. right, this is some

barrier, i presume. hmm. is this the way in? hello? sorry, machine? womans. woman? yeah, it's not man. the wall is sort of separated, male and female, and the guy took me into the male section and took me up to the wall. 0k. there's all these notes in it. massive blocks, very smooth. the texture, the shape of the wall, the bricks, from a historical and a spiritual point of view, it's worth visiting. tony at the western wall.

so, i'm heading to bethlehem, which is in palestinian territory. and it's separated by a dividing wall and a checkpoint. so, i'm going to have to get off the bus, get through the checkpoint, and somehow meet my host. i e—mailed him using my laptop with speech software, and he sent me his phone number, and i memorised it, and i'm trying to call him with my phone now. i can use the phone because the buttons are tactile. i couldn't travel without my memory, my memory is my biggest asset. i'm using my memory constantly, i'm exercising it all the time — i have to remember phone numbers, i have to remember

directions. it allows me to find things. my memory gives me my independence, along with my cane. i'm now at the checkpoint betweenjerusalem and bethlehem. i've got to walk across the checkpoint and go past the dividing wall. railings... getting through the checkpoint is a little bit complicated. slightly more complicated than i thought, slightly more confusing. and then we'd just have to sort of try and follow other people, people sort of pushing me from one way to the other. have to get past this...

looks like a deer on the palestinian side, the palestinian territories. it's quite exhilarating. as you come out of the tunnel into the taxi area, and where the wall is, you can hear all the people talking and smell the food and coffee and stuff. that's quite lively, that's quite interesting. can you show me to a taxi? taxi cab. i'm looking for a taxi. where? church of the nativity. 0k. maybe you want, i'll take you for photo at the wall,

we stop and take photo. ok, cool. you happy? yeah, always! how big is the wall? it's very big. 30... 20 metres? yes. it's far. tony... yeah? welcome to bethlehem, you're going to church? yeah, the church of the nativity. all this way... yes, wall. behind the wall you have hotel banksy behind the wall, you have hotel. i'm feeling excited to be in bethlehem, it's a new city, new town, new experiences. driving through bethlehem, along the wall, has sort

of given me a brief sense of how long the wall could be. it certainly feels quite long travelling along it. in my mind it would seem quite impressive. and i guess quite scary to a lot of people. here the church, tony. yes, this the church. ijust called my host to let him know i'm still coming. adam, we're at the church. hello?! hello... ? adam? give me, i call him... hello? i call him, he's coming, one minute he coming here. thanks, mohammed. thank you. hi, tony, how are you? hi, adam, good to meet you, looking forward to seeing yourface.

how many country you visit before? i've visited 124 countries. oh, my god, that's nice! yeah. yeah! i'm very lucky! i love to travel! have you done much travelling? not, just hear, it's not easy to go move, or to travelling another country. so you get travellers to come to you? yeah! you have steps here... this is actually couch surfing, so invariably you stay for free. ok, have steps five... you live in a castle! yeah. it's a website and you can find people on it, they have profiles, and they want to travel or they want to meet travellers, and that's how it works.

now, come here, the lift. oh, this is home! we've landed, thank you! shook cancellara i have had a wide range of couch experiences, i've slept on floors, on mattresses like this, i've slept on couches, and also i have couch slept in africa where the toilet is outside, and it's a hole in the ground. i think it probably helps not ceren, i don't see the dirt or the danger or the holes, ijust get on with it. the main thing is your meeting the people, the local host and sharing their food and their culture and their knowledge and whatever they can offer you. and hopefully you make friends at the end of it. good evening.

and good dreams are! shook ran, and to you! people think being blind must be terrible, poor you, they don't understand, they don't know what they're talking about. i'm so lucky and i'm leading a fantastic life, to be able to go country to country when i want, where i want... this is the way to travel! with very few restrictions on one i want to photograph or do, and you come here and you see people, yeah, they can see and they can walk but they can't go places, it'sjust sad. you know for directions to go change? ok, so can you give me directions? just a straight, not left, not right. so, just straight? yeah. and i wish you be happy and lucky in your life. bye—bye, good to meet you, adam. bye — bye. bye— bye. is this the entrance to the church and you can go in a straight now. ok, thank you. i can roughly hear a voice but it's a bit disconcerting, the e. the echo fits the sound, so —— splits the

sound, so it takes away the direction. we'll get there, it can't be far. there is a big metal thing with studs which could be... yes, that's a gator! oh, yes! oil, candles... a waxy smell... polish. finding the entrance is like reaching my goal, it's like reaching my target, and everything else after this is a bonus. they've started singing, isuppose, louder, and i'm going to get close to this, because there's going to be a lot of energy involved,

and then i've got to try and get close in close—up, eventually using mike kane and picking out the steps, then guy helped me down. realising that i was the only person to get close to hear that, feel that, makes me feel very privileged. i'm absolutely buzzing after that. energy is incredible! that was cool, just to be here for that if nothing else! it was quite crowded going down those steps, and black—white slippery... oh, my goodness!

from the fire into the furnace! very hot in here, and i guess, some candles at and more people coming in. this is my hand yeah? this is the place wherejesus was born, here is the star where he was born. kneel down on your knees. kneel down... more, more, more... you can touch the place wherejesus was born. this is the star, it has 14... no, it's a start. the star of david, yeah. marble? no, it's silver. this is marble. yeah, this is marble. the ground wherejesus was born is down here, you feel it, he was born here. 0k. about there? yeah, it's not ok like this,

let me help you a little bit, it's like this, you can take a photo now... definitely an experience, a very humbling experience, to sort of be in a place where one might argue history occurred 2000 years or so ago. visiting the church, the smells, the sounds, that's what makes travelling, for me, special. i travel by myself because it's my challenge, it's like climbing

a mountain, you feel, oh, this is difficult, it's a struggle, and then you get to the top, and you're like, yeah, i've made it, this is magical. that's what it's all about. broadens my horizons. and makes me become hopefully a better person. hello.

some parts of england had a washout of a good friday, some areas in western scotland were bathed in sunshine. those weather differences will continue as we go through the rest of this weekend. there will be some rain around at times, snow, particularly easter monday as we will see in a moment. it is disappointingly cool but there are drier, sunny areas too. they will come in the day ahead, the further you are away from this area of low pressure. this brought some very wet weather for some of us during good friday but you are further away still in northern and western scotland and northern ireland. so you will fare quite well, but for eastern scotland into england and wales, you will get plenty of cloud but there will still be some outbreaks of rain, some sleet and snow into the higher hills. but it is not as heavy, not as wet as it was during good friday, more of this will peter out later in the day. there will be some brightness developing in the south—west of england, western fringes of wales, to the west of the pennines, but especially into northern ireland, north and west scotland. nowhere is particularly warm and actually it is quite cold into north—east england, with a brisk breeze. a lot of that patchy wet weather

will fade away during the night, into sunday morning. clearing skies into northern and western parts of britain will allow temperatures to dip away into a touch of frost, there will be fog patches into sunday. but it is a better day on sunday, that is if you've been wet, in between weather systems, it is the most widely dry day of this easter weekend. there will be a good deal of cloud around, one or two showers to be had here and there, and some drizzle. but many places will be dry, a few breaks in the cloud here and there, maybe some developing through eastern parts of england. but expect a good deal of cloud. and rain coming back to south—west england and southwest wales later in the day, we have seen a lot of rain here, so watch out for potential problems from that. and from the rain and snow pushing northwards into easter monday, because the moisture is feeding into cold air, sofa parts of wales and the midlands northwards, some sleet and snow mainly on hills, but also possible and lower levels.

the far north of scotland staying dry during daylight hours and in the south we brighten up a bit after some heavy showers. the far north of scotland staying dry during daylight hours and in the south we brighten up a bit after some heavy showers. but it is that possibility of snow, and it's a busy travel day on easter monday which we are watching closely. if you have travel plans keep across the forecast because there is a risk of some disruption and we will keep you updated. hello this is breakfast, with naga munchetty and jon kay. more tears as the australian cricketer david warner breaks his silence over the ball tampering scandal. the former vice—captain has apologised and says he accepts he may never play for his country again. right now, it is hard to know what comes next, but first and foremost... ..is the well — is the well—being of my family. good morning, it's

saturday 31st march. also this morning: flights are due to resume at stansted after a fire — but there's anger from the thousands of passengers left stranded.