easing through the weekend and we will start to see thunderstorms breaking out. now, the initial batch of storms will be with us this afternoon and will continue to rumble away as we head through the this evening and overnight as well. so, here's the forecast. a dry start to the day for most of us. a few mist patches towards south—east england, around the chilterns, there are a few for sussex and kent as well, but these should tend will clear away. this is bbc news. the headlines: north korea has announced the immediate suspension of nuclear and missile tests saying it had completed the weaponising of nuclear arms. state media said the suspension was aimed at pursuing economic growth and peace on the korean peninsula. relations between the two koreas have thawed recently. theresa may has said members of the so—called windrush generation who have been treated unfairly by the home office will be given compensation. her comments came after it emerged that some people who came to the uk from the caribbean before 1971, have had their immigration status wrongly challenged. one of the world's biggest dance music stars,

the swedish dj, avicii, has died in oman at the age of 28. avicii, whose real name was tim bergling, stopped touring in 2016 because of ill health, including acute pancreatitis. the cause of his death has not been announced. those are the headlines. in a moment, we bring you newswatch. but first, here's click. with spencer away this week, i've been left drone alone. we are in andalucia, spain, where some important testing

is going on which could be crucial to the way the global economy moves in the 21st century. yes, after years of talk about everything from duvets to dog food making its way directly to you through the skies, it's starting to happen whether you like it or not. this is just one drone, that could be making one delivery. but in the not too distant future, our airspace could become a much busier place. the biggest internet shopping companies in the world have been talking about drone deliveries for some time, and here they are trying to find a way of making this possible safely.

more on that in a moment. but first, dan simmons has been to california to meet the people behind what is expected to be the us‘s first commercial drone delivery service. blink, and you'll miss it. travelling at 80 miles an hour, with a range of 100 miles, the new zip drones are fast, and they stop even more suddenly. the on—boa rd navigation equipment brings the aircraft to within a metre of the landing rig, tripping the sensors which jolt the zipwire upwards to catch its tail hook, plucking it out of the sky. delivery is pretty sharpish too — when a gps module confirms the aircraft is in position, a catch is released and the goods fall to earth. if you have not seen a zip drone before, you may be thinking, ishould have ordered the calzone, because any other pizza would need some fresh toppings after a landing like that. and our goal is to be able to provide access to a wide range of medical products so fast

that the patient doesn't actually even know it wasn't stocked at the hospital to begin with. the company says doctors in rural hospitals in the us would be able to send an order by text. the blood run would begin within two minutes, and if you think that is a stretch, zipline‘s already doing it here in rwanda, and soon in tanzania. this is nest 1, the site we first visited just outside kigali in 2016. while this base and its drones are monitored from california, on the ground it is now exclusively run by rwandans. and the 18 month track record is impressive. zipline‘s team in rwanda has delivered over 7000 units of blood, flying over 300,000 fully autonomous commercial kilometres. and then of those, about 1100 are emergency deliveries, so a delivery where a patient is really relying with their life on receiving that product quickly. the team has been to have a very big impact on the healthcare of a large number of people. what is happening now is that it is possible for states and cities to independently ask for permission to fly, and present their own safety cases for how that can be done

in a way that is safe for people on the ground. the new model is a lot quieter than the previous one, in fact in this rural environment, i can actually hear the birds singing to each other more loudly than the drone. and that would no doubt come as great comfort to anyone who is worried about the din of buzzing in the sky when drones start delivering for real. safety will be the highest priority. the zips operate between 40—100 metres up and away from airports, so passenger planes won't be a problem. but what about the risk of drone on drone crashes? whenever any plane is able to detect any other plane anywhere in its vicinity,

both of those planes will actually change their altitude in order to ensure that they are not on the same vertical plane as any other vehicle. to make sure they don't crash? that's right. that is governed by zipline‘s own air—traffic control system, but what about other people's drones, not on their radar? the vehicle will have a sense and avoid system which will allow it to detect any other vehicles, anything that is not in the zipline ecosystem, and make, if necessary, evasive manoeuvres. there are radar systems, lidar—based systems, there are also ones that use microphones to detect other vehicles. you said you are looking into that area, does the aircraft currently have... no, there is no current sense and avoid system. at the moment zipline reports in to us and rwandan air—traffic control, systems that are unlikely to be able to cope when more drones take to the sky. so far though they have had no crashes and should one lose positioning or comms, it flies straight back to base. in the coming weeks, maybe days,

the us authorities are expected to hand out theirfirst commercial drone delivery licenses. how many operators will follow largely depend on safety, need, and perhaps whether we prefer convenience over the buzz. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that google chrome blocked videos from auto—playing with sound. bitcoin‘s price volatility inspired a video game. and tesla again temporarily suspended production of its model 3 cars. it was also the week that ethics were put at the heart of future artificial intelligence developments by uk parliament report. "ai should never be given the power to hurt, destroyed or deceive", it said. in europe, authorities want to force tech companies to handover communications of terror suspects within hours of a court order, even if the data is held outside itsjurisdiction.

and facebook‘s woes continue — a us court ruled the social media giant should face a class—action lawsuit. it's for allegedly identifying users with facial recognition software without their explicit consent. facebook started rolling out the feature to its european and canadian users this week, but least asked for permission first. the sandy shores of eastern australia — a haven for sunshine, surfers, and occasionally... ..sharks.

last year, there were 15 unprovoked attacks on australian coasts and just this week, two surfers were bitten by the fearsome predator. patrolling the gold coast since last summer, westpac little ripper drones have been surveilling for sharks and alerting lifeguards and swimmers. they work with a custom piece of artificial intelligence software called the shark spotter, which is scarily effective. we have more than 90% accuracy with sharks. a trained human operator flying on a helicopter has accuracy around 20—30%. 90% accuracy! the programme uses object recognition to identify and decipher between people and marine life, and it gets smarter as it goes. once a shark is detected, the drone hovers near swimmers and warns them via an on board loudspeaker that it's nearby. klaxon sounds. huge swells and the waves means that sending outjet skis or human divers is really too dangerous, and pretty much pointless. but having an eye in the sky can really help. when you have the bird's eye view, you can easily identify and tell

the difference between sharks, dolphins, manta rays, turtles, but also, it has been really good for search and rescues where a drone can find a patient, especially in high seas, high swell, it can tell you exactly where the patient is and probably the best way to get them back to shore as well. earlier this year, the world's first drone rescue was successfully completed by one of their fleet. took off, flew down the beach, 800 metres, found the kids, deployed the pod to them. they grabbed it straight away. took about 70 seconds from take—off till they have the pod in their hands. and then that helped wash them in — they couldn't swim in on their own, they were in a bit of trouble. they were pretty lucky we were there that day. to pull off this feat, the drones are equipped with a neat little package. so underneath here, there is a little mechanical arm which is carrying this payload, and when it is time to be deployed, a switch is flicked, this drops down and upon impact with the water, it rapidly inflates. it is enough to carry four people for 2h hours.

as well as improving response time, the ripper group claims its system can reduce cost. instead of having several lifeguards, you could have one drone, for instance. no, it is like another bit of equipment for us. for example, ourjet skis, you know, people were a bit worried aboutjet skis, then maybe we might have to less lifeguards because we have a jet ski now, but you learn to use them in the correct way and the correct conditions, so in no way it's going to replace people, in no way is it going to replace helicopter rescues. it's just another bit of equipment we can use to save someone‘s life, potentially. it's not all rosy, though — these are aircraft working near water and people. recently, one of their drones malfunctions and had to do a crash—landing in byron bay. they patrol hourly for less than 30 minutes, so they're only watching half the time. and, of course, there is the weather — high winds or rain means no flying for little ripper.

other waterborne solutions exist, such as the static clever buoy by smart marine systems. it uses sonar to detect distinctive shark movements and sends a text message to guards to raise the alarm. it comes with underwater stereo cameras, too, which verify the findings. the kit is being used in a $60 million government project to mitigate shark attacks. but will these high—tech solutions ever really take off? spencer will be back next week. in the meantime, you can find us on facebook and twitter. but from spain, it's adios. thank you for watching. hello, welcome to newswatch

with me, samira ahmed. has bbc news been too quick to accept the british government's narrative of what is happening in syria? and how does middle east editor jeremy bowen face the challenge of getting to the truth about that country's civil war? who is doing what to whom in syria, and what the west can or should do about it, has been much argued over in the seven years since pro—democracy protests sparked the civil war there. the debate has been particularly impassioned since saturday's air strikes by the us, the uk and france in retaliation for the suspected chemical weapons attack two weeks ago by president assad's forces.

and part of the discussion has focused on how the bbc has reported that alleged attack, and the military response to it. brian tickle described himself as... max retallack agreed, e—mailing us to say... well, one guest who did provide a sceptical perspective was former