strikes if the government of president assad uses chemical weapons again. the american ambassador to the un, nikki haley, told the security council the us was "locked and loaded". the strikes have been described as "hooliganism" by the russian ambassador, vassily nebenzia. he said there'd been a blatant disregard for international law. the un secretary—general, antonio guterres, has appealed for restraint in what he called "dangerous circumstances". there've been huge anti—government protests in the hungarian capital, budapest. tens of thousands of people were demonstrating against the right—wing government of prime minister viktor orban. a week ago, his party won two—thirds of the parliamentary seats with less than half of the national vote. now on bbc news, it's time for click. old mackelly had a farm, e—i—e—i—o. and on his farm, he had a robot tractor, a flower picker and,

oh, it looks like we're taking on a new member of the team! if i'm honest, i'm as comfortable on a real farm as a cow would be in a data farm, but i'm here to see a world first. as farming gets more automated, it might not come as a surprise to know that many modern tractors will drive autonomously in a straight line. nearly all of them, though, need a human operator to turn the corners and generally be the brains of the operation. what's interesting is that in this

one field in shropshire in the heart of england, every single stage of the farming cycle, from preparing the soil to harvesting crops, is automated. welcome to the hands free hectare. the researchers at harper adams university, along with agricultural engineers, have already completed a whole year of sowing, growing and harvesting spring barley, all using autonomous machinery and without a single human touching the crops. and how have you made them autonomous? it looks like you've had a go yourself. so everything we've used is off the shelf, you could buy yourself, and it revolves around the open source autopilot from a drone, and then we've had to adapt our tractors' manual controls

with motors and actuators. and we'll come back to the hands free hectare in a few minutes. these machines have an advantage for farmers because you don't need as many people operating or supervising them and, of course, farming automation is happening across the board. last week, we saw a pepper—picking robot in australia. and as brexit threatens to cut down the number of people available to work on the land, this could become increasingly important. jen copestake has been the netherlands to see some more developments in automated picking. selective harvesting of delicate crops like strawberries, mushrooms and flowers is physical and repetitive work. the crops are easily damaged, resulting in financial losses for farmers. traditionally, these industries have attracted migrant workers but with standards of living rising across the globe, the work is not as attractive as it once was,

leading some farmers to consider how robots could fill in the gaps. many countries around the world are facing a labour shortage for harvesting crops, including here in the netherlands, which has the world's second largest value of agricultural exports. it's the world's largest exporter of cut flowers. but are robots really ready to pick up the slack from human workers? at wageningen university, researchers certainly think so, and are working on all kinds of problems in the fruit and vegetable supply chain, from testing firmness of fruit to manual handling. firmness is usually tested by hand — by physically cutting the fruit and sticking a probe in it. it's a labour—intensive process and the fruit is left damaged and cannot be sold. researchers think robots will provide a more accurate and hygienic solution that doesn't damage the fruit. it is a funny robot, right? yeah. so what's it doing? it's a prototype forfruit inspection. how does it do that? with near—infrared microscopy.

oh, wow. so he's happy with that apple. yeah, he is happy with the apple — look how happy he is. do you think he's going to go for a pear next? we don't know. he decides. it's an autonomous robot, yeah, so, yeah. a key breakthrough will be getting these machines to work faster than humans and in a commercial setting. robots are already at work in the greenhouses here at florensis. and these machines can autonomously plant 2,400 to 2,600 cuttings an hour, compare to a human working at a still impressive 1,400 an hour. it recognises the top and bottom of the cutting and even shakes the conveyor belt to free them if the camera can't get a good look. the onlyjobs left for the workers here are scattering the cuttings on the machine and quality control

of the finished product. so before, how many human workers would be on this line? on a line like this, with this capacity, about 10—12 people needs to be sticking manually. 10-12? yeah. and now you have how many? two. fewer people does not mean less work can be done. at the end of the game, it — you can work 2a hours of the day, you could save, let's say, 60% of your labour cost. there are many aspects, which is going to help the total process. i believe, and i am convinced, that this is just the start. and absolutely, this will replace the human being. bringing autonomous picking robots beyond prototypes to actually working in the field has been an immense challenge. but dutch company cerescon is ready to sell its white asparagus harvesting robots. it has sold one to a farmer in france and are building more in its headquarters near eindhoven. white asparagus are more expensive than the green variety.

it grows under the ground. to stay white, they need to be picked before seeing any sunlight. we actually inject an electrical signal into the ground and we have these sensors, which dig through the soil and when they approach the asparagus, they actually pick up the signal and the closer you get to the asparagus, the stronger the signal gets, and when it is above a certain threshold we know, "0h, now we're very close," so we immediately pull back this sensor and then we know where it is. the asparagus is actually conducting electrically the signal because there's a lot of water in there, so basically, the difference between water content of the asparagus and the sand, that makes the difference how we detect the asparagus. cerescon says the 3—row version of the machine can replace up to 70 manual hand workers. is this machine more efficient than a human? yes, yes, enormous, much more. and also, you have better quality asparagus because we detect them sub—surface, they do not become

violet and they don't flower, and we have less sub—surface damage. with the current way of manual harvesting, they lose 30% of the crops with sub—surface damage, and with our machine, we think we bring it back to 10% or 15%. we're seeing the race to develop these robots for market accelerating around the world. this is the agrobot. it's being trialled in driscoll‘s berry fields in california. here in the uk, farmers are experimenting with the technology too. there are fears about the availability of migrant workers post brexit. i understand how an indigenous population in a country like britain may be reluctant to have a career in hand—picking strawberries. and so, it tends to be done by migrant labour. there are access issues with that with brexit and the like. we're keen to maintain, as a farming industry, good access to that labour pool at the moment,

but we can see that in 5,10,15 years time, we may have technology whereby this work can be done by robots. a lot of work is being done to try and solve the labour crisis in selective harvesting with robots. perhaps one day, farms will look more like car plant assembly lines and humans picking fruits, vegeta bles a nd flowers will become a distant memory. that wasjen in the netherlands. back at the hands free hectare in shropshire, this little autonomous tractor is making its way across the field. this is footage from a proof of concept project in automated sustainable farming, which means looking after the environment at the same time as growing enough food to meet the demands of a population that could reach nearly 10 billion people by the year 2050. but why have they chosen to use smaller tractors instead of the giant modern ones, which can cover much larger areas?

so with all the benefits of those big tractors, there are also the problems. 0ne main problem is the weight of the tractors, and that weight is doing lots of damage to the soil, and that is essentially that the squishing and the removal of structure from a soil which makes it very hard for plants to grow. so we see the solution as the one guy who's driving the big tractor then becomes, like, a swarm or a fleet manager of these smaller autonomous machines. back in the field, i join kit franklin in a cold, cramped control hut. so what are we looking at here? ok, so this is the telemetry coming back from the tractor. so you can see the position of the tractor, where it's got to, and you can see it meeting the waypoint, turning... as well as not compacting the soil, there is another advantage to using smaller vehicles — small sprayers allow for precision farming. now, that means being able to deliver the right fertilisers and pesticides only to the plants that need it. when you blanket spray,

a lot of the spray isn't hitting target, it's hitting soil, and then just going into the environment. so with a smaller robotic system, we aim to be much more precise and put targeted input. so if we only target the plant itself, we can drop that chemical use by 80% upwards, depending on whose papers you read. but how do you know which crops need special attention? part of the deal with precision farming is knowing exactly what parts of your field need what kind of treatment. now, that's usually done by eye. you would come and look at the crops and the state of the soil, you may even dig up a few samples and from that, work out what you need to spray where. well, here, even that part is automated. drones fly autonomously between waypoints, capturing pictures of the field with specially adapted cameras. so we're looking at multispectral images, so looking at near—infrared

type parts of the spectrum. under infrared, plants give away a lot. so we can look at disease stress or nutrient stress, and things like that. and kit says that even though you'd need a fleet of smaller tractors to as do the work of one big tractor, each would costjust a fraction of the price of the big beast. 0ur machine that we're using in this field, i could sell you, with some profit, for £110,000. so you could have multiple of my robot tractors, my autonomous tractors, for the price of your one very large tractor that you currently might be buying. ifeel like i'm in some kind of car sales showroom at the moment. i'm starting to be convinced. yeah, i'll have five, please, yeah, yeah. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was, of course, the week dominated by mark zuckerberg's apologise—a—thon in washington. we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well.

while most observers thought the facebook boss came out on top, big questions remain. meme makers, meanwhile, have been working overtime, mocking the social media billionaire‘s performance at a us congress grilling. 0uch! it was the week gesture control specialists leap motion revealed its latest project — virtual wearable interfaces. you'll need an augmented reality headset, though, to bring this digital tech to life. uber acquired bike—sharing start—up jump, and its 12,000 gps—tracked bikes across a0 cities worldwide. and hackers removed youtube‘s most watched video — despacito by luis fonsi. they also defaced vids by a host of big—name acts like drake and taylor swift. the clips are now back online as normal. google‘s artificial intelligence boffins at deepmind have been training an al to navigate naturally through city streets like a human. using street view, the ai explores cities as if it's on foot — virtually, of course.

the software could help self—driving cars get around areas with rubbish maps. an escalator manufacturer has launched what it's claiming is the most boring virtual reality experience in the world — a never—ending journey on one of its escalators. somebody gets paid to think of this stuff, you know. it was my mistake and i'm sorry. yes, this is the way that facebook faced the music, as zuck was called to congress to answer tough questions about his company's treatment of its users' personal information. well, that was the plan, but the internet was quick to point out that the senators' questions didn't so much expose zuckerberg's flaws as they did their own lack of technical understanding. there will always be a version of facebook that is free. critics complained that because the whole theory of big data is so hard to get your head around, the hard questions weren't asked. but at least some managed to cut

to the heart of the matter. would you be comfortable sharing with us the name of the hotel you stayed in last night? um... ah, no. but you're following facebook users even after they log off of that platform and application. ah, congresswomen, that's right, that we understand, in order to show which of yourfriends... so for people who do not even have facebook, i don't think the average person understands that. this story has a long way to run yet. but could silicon valley's view that technology is always a force for good be dealt a fatal blow? well, jamie bartlett is a long—time friend of click, and in his latest book, the people vs tech, he argues that technology is slowly but surely eating away at society. here is to explain. good evening, the social media giant

facebook is under growing pressure to explain the measures it's taking to secure the personal data of its 2 billion users worldwide. the revelations about cambridge analytica and facebook have shocked the world, but this runs a far deeper. it's just one example of a grand struggle taking place every day between modern technology and our democracy. strong and stable leadership. this country needs... you're not credible. jeremy, jeremy, i know there is no extra.. invest in education! invest in health! you're the coalition... the recent anti—gun movement in florida of course demonstrates how modern technology can be brilliant for democracy. it allows people to organise themselves, to have access to new forms of information,

and get involved in politics. however, because of some of these very visible benefits, i think it has blinded us to the deeper ways that digital technology is slowly pulling democracy apart. there's a problem of compatibility. see, our democracies are old. they were designed for an analogue age. and there's rules and institutions like free elections, a vibrant press, informed citizens, that keep the whole thing working. but now there's a new game in town. digital technology. and it runs according to very different rules, it's decentralised, it's hard to control, it's data lead, and it improves at an incredible speed. think about it, our elections have rules to make sure that citizens have access to the same information. that's how we thrash out the public issues of the day and make sure that

what the candidates say is mostly accurate. but now, with big data analysis and micro—targeting, we can build up very detailed profiles of individuals and politicians can target them with highly personalised messages. this allows politicians to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities at an industrial scale and in a way that regulators can't easily see. it's out with the old public sphere of shared information and in with a brilliant private spheres. —— a million. pretty soon, politicians will be able to send a million personalised messages to a million people. and how do we keep politicians to account if everyone‘s getting a different message? and do you know how much

worse this could get? they can extract from this seemingly innocent information very accurate predictions about your religiosity, leadership potential, political views. one day soon your fridge will know everything about your diet, your car will know what journeys you've been on, your home assistant will know your mood because of the tone of your voice. and you will be getting messages based on all of that data. and that will open up a whole new world of possible manipulation. but it's us too. democracies need informed citizens who have a shared sense of reality. but we're now overwhelmed with information, facts and claims, and misinformation and propaganda. and it's allowing us to create our own versions of reality. that's making us more angry and far less likely to compromise with each other. in the end, there can only be one winner of this grand struggle, either tech will destroy democracy and the social order as we know it,

or politics will stamp its authority and control over the digital revolution. 0n the current track, technology is winning. and unless things change democracy will be washed away, just like communism or feudalism or absolute monarchies before it — as a system that worked for a while, but then couldn't upgrade when the technology around it changed. that was jamie bartlett on the people vs tech. blimey, i think we need something more uplifting after that, don't you? well, over the years we've looked at some incredible technologies that help people with disabilities to gain more independence and a better quality of life. well up next, kate russell has had first—hand experience of the impacts of a simple app on a family devastated by a chromosome disorder that has robbed a young boy of his voice.

most children start speaking their first words in the second year of life. people take it for granted — until it doesn't happen. i travelled to the south of england to meet bastian pond... hello! hello. ..and find out more about the impact this can have on a family. you're making the train track! bastian has phelan—mcdermid syndrome. it affects only 1,500 people worldwide and is the result of a missing or mutated chromosome which results in global development delay. in bastian‘s case this includes the absence of speech. although bastian can't talk, he does understand some of what's said. would you like a drink? he is using chatable to express

basic needs and wants in reply. i want blackcurrant. all right, b. i want blackcurrant. therapy box is the company behind the app. so what was the inspiration behind it? i'm a speech and language therapist by trade and have worked in the nhs and worked with lots of young people and seen how if they don't have the right tools to communicate that they're really restricted and not able to reach their potential. in our app, it's using photos, for example, of the child's environment, to support their communication. it might be a picture of their classroom or at home or pages that are more like grids, so they've got an arrangement of symbols that they can press in order to make a sentence. although bastian‘s condition is incredibly rare, over 300,000 people in the uk have speech disabilities that could benefit from augmentative and alternative communication techniques. the chatable app itself is so versatile for the technology. if you see here, that's an old pecs communication book. it's cards and stickers with the symbols on them. right.

but this is so limited... so this is what he used to use. yeah. and then he shows it to me. 0k, well, what does that say? can i see that? can you show it to kate? ca rs. and he's signing cars to you as well. right. so to move on from that, to do it on the ipad is absolutely brilliant, because it's unlimited, you can have as many symbols as you like. right. what has been the effect on him of having a little bit more independence and also on the rest of the family? well, i described it as being a miracle, the chatable. because that's really what it feels like. it has given him a voice. and, um... without me getting really upsets... something that upsets me is that i will never hear him say "i love you, mummy" orjust call me mummy.

sorry, i'm just getting really emotional. but maybe with the app he might be able to. it's clear this technology is making a huge difference for bastian at home. and it will grow with him with educational tools and analytics to help develop language, reading, and writing. there's also a visual timetable so he might one day be able to take more control over his daily life. at £99 per user it's a lot of money, but the app will evolve with bastian and the developers promise ongoing support and updates for users. they also told as they are dropping the price to just £1 soon, which will make a great difference to many families. what do you think it would have been like dealing with his condition without the technology? ph my gosh, it doesn't even bear thinking about. it is his communication, enjoyment for him, downtime, he watches tv when he goes to bed, the shows help him wind down. it's everything to him. highfive! yeah. brilliant. that is kate russell and bastian pond. don't forget, we live

on facebook and twitter — @bbcclick. so you can tune in any time you fancy. thanks for watching. and we'll see you soon. hello there. if scenes like these have left you wanting more spring warmth and sunshine, well, i have to say, the second half of the weekend probably won't live up to the promise of the first. that is how saturday ended across north yorkshire. 0rkney shrouded in a bit of low cloud but some blue skies overhead as well. sunday does look a little bit different because of this area of low pressure, which is now pushing its way in from the west. it will strengthen up the winds. this frontal system will also bring some outbreaks of rain northward

and eastward across the uk. so, sunday, a cloudy day. quite a breezy day as well. there will be some rain at times but not all the time. it is by no means a complete washout. we will, though, see some rain into the south—west, parts of wales, northern ireland, through the first part of the morning. that rain pushing its way across the midlands and northern england and southern scotland through the day. it will be quite on and off, quite sporadic, it will not be raining all day. as the main band of rain clears we'll be left with showers pushing into the south—west. very windy across northern ireland. the brightest of the weather across the north—east of scotland, i suspect, and perhaps the highest temperatures. inverness could get to 16 or 17 degrees. some showers drifting north and east through sunday night but by monday morning most places will be dry with some clear spells.

temperatures not dropping too far, six or seven or eight degrees. that's about it, as we start the new working week. during monday, not a bad—looking day for many. we'll see spells of sunshine. always more cloud and a few showers across scotland. the cloud will thicken up in northern ireland later in the day. outbreaks of rain here as well. particularly in the late afternoon. the wind is still pretty brisk in those western areas. temperatures not as high as they were on saturday, no, but 13, 1a, 15 degrees will not feel too bad if you get some sunshine. that relatively warm feeling will stick with this as we move out of monday and into tuesday. low pressure to the west, high pressure to the east, squeezing between the two we have this south—westerly wind. across northern ireland and scotland there could be some pretty wet weather on tuesday, outbreaks of rain, which could spill down into north—western england and northern wales at times.

further south and east we'll see the best of the sunshine and the highest of the temperatures, 19, maybe 20 degrees. hello and welcome to bbc news. welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is nkem ifejika. america's envoy to the united nations has warned president trump could authorise further attacks on syria if the assad regime used chemical weapons again in future. nikki haley was speaking after the us, britain and france launched an initial round of strikes in response to last week's suspected chemical attack on the town of douma. the russian president, vladimir putin, a close ally of syria, said he condemned the action "in the most serious way". 0ur north america editorjon sopel starts our coverage.