of the security council to discuss the poisoning in the uk. it said britain was playing with fire in accusing moscow of carrying out the attack. in response, britain said its actions stood up to any scrutiny and likened russian requests to take part in the investigation to an arsonist investigating his own fire. a court in south korea is expected to deliver a heavy punishment to the former president in one of the nation's biggest corruption scandals which could see herjailed for 30 years. and this story is popular on bbc.com: prince charles and the duchess of cornwall taking a stroll along the beach at the gold coast. the royal couple, on a tour of australia after opening the commonwealth games, saw a demonstration of a rescue drill by young lifesavers. that's all from me now. stay with bbc world news. now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk.

i'm stephen sackur. 20 years ago, a historic agreement was signed in northern ireland, monica mcwilliams, welcome to hardtalk.

thank you. so here we sit on the eve of this historic 20th anniversary of the signing of the so—called good friday agreement. does it feel to you, living in northern ireland today, that it is a very, very different place from the northern ireland of 20 years ago? it is a completely different place. i used to run from bombs and stand at funerals. my own friend was murdered in 1974 as a university student. those were hard days. and now my children have a completely different life than the life i led. i lived through the 30 years through the troubles from about 14. i signed the agreement when i was about 1m. so i say to this generation, "this is your peace. we tried to make it,

you need to build it." interesting that you say your children live in this different environment. yet i know northern ireland quite well and was there not long ago, and it still strikes me as a deeply, deeply segregated society. it is indeed. and we have a lot of work to do. it is an unfinished business. when we made the peace agreement, we said that we would have to work on those issues, and the hardest of all would—be sectarianism. that remains the case. they say that for all the years that you are in conflict, it takes you the same number of years to come out of it. and the mindsets are the last thing that you can change. you can build the structures, you can build in the kind of systemic changes you want to see, but to actually change the mindsets — actually, it wasjohn hume who said — the nobel peace prize winner — "you can take the guns away, decommission them, but to decommission the mindsets is a different thing." that's what we now have a problem with.

we will get to that. i want to talk in this interview about contemporary northern ireland. but it is important to dig deep into what happened to you and your place over the last 20 years, and going back through the troubles, too. you talk mindset — explain to me what it was like being a catholic girl in a close—knit family in a small community close to the city of londonderry — or derry — as catholics call it, in northern ireland — what was it like growing up there in the 1960s? well, it is the 50th anniversary today of the murder of martin luther king. and so my memory was sitting watching that and thinking, "i wonder if we will ever get civil rights," and in fact, civil rights took off, and i marched for those rights. i didn't have much consciousness about being a young woman, because i carried a banner saying "one man, one vote."

but those were the things that we thought about. we weren't so conscious until we were older of the impact of discrimination in housing, jobs, or voting. and that has changed. you mean discrimination in a society that you catholics felt was run by and for the protestant majority? it was. looking back now, that needs to be understood that that was one of the causes. and it could have been resolved much earlier. and it didn't need to turn into a violent conflict, the people who are responsible, who had power, and it is very hard to take the candy from the baby without it screaming, and they weren't about to give that power up. so we have learned that in other conflicts — it could have been resolved much earlier if those causes of what was creating enormous descent had have been tackled. there was two of everything

in my town: two chemists, two butchers, two grocery shops. of course, two schools, that was taken for granted. and that is the way it was until i was 18 and i went off to university. you've already told me that you have lost loved ones. you witnessed violence and bombs going off in your street, close to your house. did you feel hate in your heart for the other? no, that wasn't an emotion i felt. i don't think that would have been productive. it might not be productive, but you were growing up in a society full of suspicion and, it has to be said, hate. why didn't you hate? i was angry, as every young person tends to be through their teenage years. i felt that i need to turn that into something, and my own parents were strong on education, and i was very fortunate that i realised this was not going to be resolved by hating somebody, but by understanding

what their interests were. eventually, 20 years later, that's what happened, and understanding my own interests. that's why i formed this coalition made up of women from both sides of the community. that's interesting, because if we fast forward to the 90s, you set up something which northern ireland really never had — which was a women's political party. and you made it explicitly nonsectarian by teaming up with a protestant woman. yes, and it wasn'tjust one woman, but many. we had, for the 25 years before the peace talks were declared, we'd sowed the seeds across the community. it was women fighting against poverty, and coming from both sides. as they used to say, "you cannot fry a flag in a frying pan." women really realised whilst men were at this, we need to get on with the bread—and—butter issues. this may be a daft and crude question, but did feminism trump sectarianism? for you, anyway.

it would not have trumped it, but many of us realised what sexual violence meant. irrespective of who you were. we wanted the sexual violence act extended to northern ireland. the labour government said the problem in northern ireland was religious discrimination, not sex discrimition. women, like myself, were fed up with having, if we were to sign for a house, we needed a man to do it, if we were going to get some loans, we had to get a man to speak up for us. but also in terms ofjobs, we had to give upjobs if we were going to get married. that was a ridiculous amount of discrimination, that only we were suffering. so we said discrimination crosses the board, here, irrespective of your religion and of your class. and that is when we sowed the, as far back as then. even in a traditional society, as northern ireland was even

in the 1990s, this message struck a chord, and you stood for election in the negotiating forum, which became the forum that yielded the good friday agreement. you didn't win that many votes, but won enough to win two seats around the table. but reading the record pf what happened, there was an awful lot of sexism, misogyny, and abuse aimed at you around the negotiating table. there was, indeed. anyone who has experienced that tends to block it out afterwards. and tends to... how bad was it? "go home and have babies, you should not be at this table." "the only table you should be at is the table you are to polish." and "stand by your men." so we found a way of using our humour. we found a way of staying strong and saying this is about them, not about us. but it was incredibly humiliating.

i was actually a university lecturer, so i shouldn't have been so emotional about it. but when somebody is daily telling you that you don't count, it does lower your confidence, but every night the women came together in my house or in the house of some of the other women who had children, and we needed to talk, and that was a solidarity, and that was how we kept our strength together. do you think that because there were women in the room, which northern ireland was not used to, it actually brought something different, fresh, to the table? you've said some interesting things in retrospect. you have said you have to allow yourself to believe that individuals, even those who carried out violence, can change. do you think many of the men didn't believe in the humanity that you could see all believed in and hoped for? that was the case for some of the men at the table, but not all of them. i will say something that is probably controversial now. the two small loyalist parties, who came from, that were associated

with armed paramilitaries, they were the gentlemen at the table, who stood up for us when we receivef the abuse. and it is good that they were going to challenge it as well as us. and some of this was about people not wanting to sit with their enemies. and we had already decided that as nelson mandela had once told us in south africa, you have to make peace with those enemies. it's not with your friends that you are going to sit and negotiate. that was the hardest part. understanding the legitimacy of everyone at the table. notjust us and the women's coalition, but the men. but your question is so pertinent. yes is the answer. in does make a difference when women are at the table. if they have come with progressive issues about conflict resolution... because not all women are essentially peace—makers, but we had decided that we were going to be involved in an inclusive process that involved those that had been armed combatants

as well as old constitutional parties. and it was that mix that we were constantly pushing and saying "if we can stay together, we will get through this together", and we did. but you had big ambitions. you made it plain that this was not just about institution building, but more than that. you said it had to deal with the rights of victims, talk about children and young people, education systems, and mixed housing. and they built the institutions and there was a power—sharing executive, and we will talk about what happened to it in, but on those deeper, deeper roots of a change in northern ireland, frankly, 20 years on, i'm wondering whether you just feel severe disappointment. let me say first that we put those issues on the table. we realised that peace was more than mobilisation and disarmament, because for sustainable peace, you need integrated education, and to speak about what you will do for the young people coming behind you. most importantly, you need to say what you'll do for the victims

of the conflict. otherwise, it is a terrorist charter. my point is you talked about that and wanted to deliver that. my point is that you haven't. if you go to northern ireland today, the schools are segregated. there is a great big so—called "peace wall" that divides protestant and catholic neighbourhoods in belfast to this very day. you still have the parades, men in paramilitary uniforms doing their thing in towns and villages across northern ireland. so in that cultural, deeper sense, you haven't done it. it is a beginning, not an end. the first thing we did was to create safety and security for people. those issues will be longer—term. and i think what we did was look at short—term gains, and still didn't concentrate on the long tern pain of letting people go to school together, letting the children be brought up together. did your kids go to catholic school? they did. that doesn't fit with your principles. there were no integrated education

schools close to my home, but it doesn't mean i would not fight for them today. there is more choice. but you're right, unless there is little will to drive it forward, we will remain segregated. if people come to northern ireland, they will see separate schools and communities and even the peace walls. there is now a deadline for the walls to come down, 2023. i am now the only woman on a four—member coalition for the disbandment of paramilitaries. but we'll also set a deadline. i won't personally disband them, nor will my colleagues. but they, and i believe they will and have to, take themselves out of the picture. let me ask you a question. you say you have to believe, but you need to be realistic. the police service of northern ireland has released figures this year which show last year there were more violent incidents involving pa ramilitaries on both sides than in the previous year, a really significant rise. that's worrying.

and you're responsible for trying to work out how to deal with the paramilitaries. but it's not going in the right direction. and if you look, generally, today, at all these issues we are just raising, you could argue that northern ireland, to an outsider, looks a society which could very easily slip back into violent conflict. irrespective of being a protestant, at catholic, or years. i don't agree with that analysis. there are armed group attacks. we actually are trying to stop using the word paramilitary. some people call it public child abuse, but there were 50 people killed in london this year, with knife attacks. it's not going to be a perfect peace, but we will tackle those issues and the community is going to be the first to say no more of this coercive control, no more of cards pretending to be commanders of paramilitary groups. they are rising up and there is wonderful things going on that people don't see, or it doesn't get reported, and that's why i would say that till the day i'm carried into my coffin, i'll be working at this...

but... but it's worth working at. yeah, but the — right now, the power—sharing executive isn't functioning. the two main parties, that is the unionist party, the dup, and sinn fein, can't work with each other. yeah. do you feel let down by the politicians today? i used to feel a sense of failure and an enormous sense of friction. the frustration continues, but that's not useful emotions, you just have to keep working at it. they should by now have learned how to do a deal. there's nothing wrong with the agreement, either the belfast good friday agreement or st andrews. it's about relationship building, it's about committing to something, it's about promising to carry it out, and it's about fulfilling those promises. well, i come back to that word realism — the historian ruth dudley, who spends a lot of time thinking about northern ireland politics,

she says that given the fact it's more than a year since you've had workable power—sharing, she says the truth is the good friday agreement has, quote, "outlived its usefulness." well, i think that's total nonsense. i don't know when ruth dudley edwards was back in belfast to see the life i'm now leading. it's notjust governance arrangements, the policing changes are now a role model for other countries. there have been many changes institutionally, there's a human rights commission. she's not saying do away with all of that, she's just saying this inbuilt, mandatory coalition between the main unionist party and the main republican, nationalist party... yeah. she said is no longer fit for purpose. that's not the way politics in a more mature society should work. well, perhaps we aren't that mature yet and therefore, we need those institutions. they were brought in for a reason and i believe that if those relationships were improved, it would be much better. i saw it working during my time and when it worked, it was a lovely thing to see, when reverend ian paisley, former enemy of martin mcguinness came together, those institutions worked.

so sometimes it's about personality, sometimes it's about chemistry, but most of all it's about committing to what you've promised and people didn't live up to those commitments. so we have to get back round the table. i've been round that table many, many times before. i believe that those negotiations can come out the other end. i believe those governance arrangements will go back up. i'd love to say to people like ruth dudley edwards and others, what do you think is the alternative? it's not going to be power—sharing, there's no such thing — it is going to be about power—sharing. there's no such thing as majority rule any more, in fact there's no majorities any more. so what do you do? you form coalitions. we're not the only country. the republic of ireland has a coalition, many european countries — angela merkel has a coalition. make it work. maybe one reason, for more than a year, it hasn't worked is because brexit seems to be

directly affecting the mood of people in northern ireland, because one of the biggest controversial and unknowns right now about brexit is what it's going to do to the border between northern ireland and the republic of ireland. how big a factor is that, do you believe? huge, and it's — you've put yourfinger on it, it's unknown. it's the uncertainty, it has driven us back into silos that we didn't need to go back into. the good thing about our agreement was the british and irish government coming together to sing off the same page, now how do they do that? we cannot go back to a border between the north and south, those constitutional arrangements were meant to be resolved. i sat at that table, i wrote european, european, european into that agreement over and over again. i'm a proud european, and i no longer want to live in a little, tiny society, that is... well, with all due respect, that's you and that's your choice, but the fact is the uk public as a whole voted in a referendum to leave and surely it's incumbent upon the people of northern ireland, as a whole, to figure out how they can be part of the will of the people?

well, let me say it's notjust me. northern ireland voted to remain. i think they were sensible people who saw that if they did any other, it would create problems further down the road which we didn't need, but yes, it's foreign policy and therefore, the uk voted to go. but did you, did anybody going to the polls thatjune think hmm, i wonder will my vote have an impact on that little place over there called northern ireland, that's part of this united kingdom for over 30 years, they had a violent conflict, then they resolved it and actually, being part of europe helped to resolve that? no, they didn't. they didn't even think about it, and now they're having to focus on it. well, david trimble, lord trimble, who of course was a key player on the unionist side through the era of peace negotiations, he says categorically, "it is rubbish that brexit in itself will undermine the good friday agreement", i.e he sees people like you as making excuses. well, he could be correct in saying that by itself it won't undermine it, but it's certainly a factor that we could have done without.

it has created uncertainty, which i'm certain he would also agree. he was always, always against the european union. he always saw it as a problem and i respect people's views who saw it that way, but in terms of its impact on that agreement, it is having a huge impact and i think it is unnecessary, and we are going to have to come out the other end of it in october and i think all good heads are going to be put together to make sure that ireland doesn't go back to a division. do you think it's unhelpful when the irish republic and the key players in that government talk about notjust the wedge that they see brexit placing in the middle of the island of ireland and they worry about that, but they go further and for example, simon coveney, the 45—year—old foreign minister of the republic said not so long ago, he said, you know, "in my lifetime, i believe that there will be a referendum on a united ireland", raising the spectre of something which is so divisive in the north. is that helpful? well, constitutionally, he's correct, but the question is when? and as someone once said to me

in the negotiations, you shouldn't actually always ask a question until you're certain you know what's coming out the other end, and that was over the referendum and it was about decommissioning of guns and a whole lot of questions, and i would say to simon, it would be better that we rest that and let's resolve these issues at the moment. i want to live peacefully with my neighbours in northern ireland, i do not want to be in a place apart, in a space where we don't know each other, as strangers. we've come a long way and what i want to do is allow people the consensus, which was at the core of our agreement, to decide what they want to be in the future. but 20 years... that drives them. yeah. that brexit issue will drive them into a place where they don't want to be. but 20 years on, 20 years on, monica, we have the uncertainty of brexit and we have political limbo in northern ireland.

how long can that be allowed to continue before it becomes profoundly dangerous for the security of northern ireland? i don't think we're anywhere close to becoming profoundly dangerous. really? i don't think we're anywhere close to a reoccurence of the violence. i do think that we are in a very uncertain period where people once again, when they don't need to be angry with each other, are. i'm certain we will come through this without violence. now, that doesn't mean that people are rushing to sign up to become customs officers or immigration officers, because they are the people who may be threatened. but we've lived with that as a kind of rollercoaster as we've tried to implement this agreement, and we may have to continue living with that. but that does not mean we will go back to anything close to the conflict that i came through.

we've tasted the prize of peace, and we will go on doing so. there was a time when you were a young woman and the troubles were at their height, that you thought about living in the united states. you did live there for some time, but then you decided to come home. do you think your grandchildren will actually want to live in northern ireland, or will they see it as a place which is too divided, too segregated to make a decent life? i came home — i left after the murder of my good student friend, michael malan, in 1974, because i thought it was never going to change and i couldn't bear it, but i couldn't bear to stay there any in the united states, far away, and watch what was going on in my own country. so i got my qualifications and came home and set myself about working. i ask this question with myself, having a son in chicago, and i've lived my life to make the country a peaceful place for him to come home to. he loves where he's at, he's got a good job where he's at, and my other son has also had to leave because he couldn't find

a job in northern ireland. that's the country i want to have, i want notjust my children to come home, i want every child to come home, notjust to a safe place but a place of prosperity, where they can work. hello. thursday always was set to be one of the best days of this week and so it proved and our weather watchers were very much out in force, probably encouraged by the fact that it was such a glorious day all the way from scotland to the south coast and across the irish sea and into northern ireland but that's really rather cruel to use that particular picture to bring you the message that it will be on friday another glorious day

for many parts of the british isles because, i'm afraid to say, that belfast and indeed much of northern ireland, it won't be that way for you, and the seeds of the destruction of your glorious friday were there being sown on thursday with this veil of cloud moving in from the atlantic and as we get into the first part of friday, well, the rain will already be there, and how, across northern ireland, and it may already be flirting with the western side of scotland as well. but at least underneath that veil of cloud, it won't be such a cold start to friday in the west as it will be in the east. because skies will be that bit clearer. and it's that time of the year where if the skies are clear, the heat will dribble away and you start off with a pretty cool start your day. there, the bigger picture, one of the benefits of having that low pressure out towards our west, on its eastern flank, we are sucking up all this mild air

from the western part of the mediterranean and from iberia. so eventually, as you will see, our temperatures really will respond to that. but, i'm afraid, out towards the west, there is no disguising the fact that once the rain has set in, it will probably keep on coming across northern and western parts of scotland. certainly for the greater part of the day for northern ireland and for the western fringes of wales. here, the temperatures may struggle, just about getting into double figures. but further towards the east, somebody is going to see 16 or 17 degrees somewhere across the south—eastern quarters. from friday into saturday, we'll push that initial pulse of rain away. but we've still got a linkage, actually, that frontal system bringing the prospect of yet more rain, somewhere across eastern and central parts of the british isles in the first part of the day. i think northern ireland, central and southern parts of scotland, maybe the western fringes of wales and the south—west, could get away with a dry day. there is some uncertainty but i think one of the things that we can say about the weekend is that the temperatures for many of us, because of that essentially southerly flow,

will stay in double figures and again, there isjust this prospect on sunday of a little bit of rain for some, but many could well stay dry. welcome to newsday. i'm sharanjit leyl. the headlines: "you're playing with fire". russia warns britain at the un over the salisbury poisonings. london dismisses moscow's request for cooperation. i think the metaphor that i find most apt is that of an arsonist turned firefighter. waiting for her fate. a court in south korea prepares to deliver the verdict in former president park geun hye's corruption trial. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme: prison looms for lula — brazil's former president is told to turn himself in and start serving a 12 yearjail term for corruption. one of bollywood's biggest stars, salman khan, is sentenced to five years in jail for killing two rare antelopes