here at these gardens, vanilla as is grown ina here at these gardens, vanilla as is grown in a glasshouse, but 75% of the world's vanilla grows in madagascar. vanilla is currently around $600 per kilo. the main reason for this is that there was a cyclone in madagascar last march which damaged a lot of the plantations and despite hopes that the price would have eased by now it's still on the high side, around those levels, and, in fact, this means it is higher than the price of silver. a highly prized and highly priced ingredients, as a result, only 1% of the flavouring in food comes from actual vanilla plants like these ones. and even though you might find it in sweet scented perfumes or candles, cakes, or even cocktails, do beware, because cheaper alternatives can be extracted from wood and even petrol. it will take untiljune to find out how this year's vanilla harvest fares. the team at snugburys say they aren't passing on the cost to customers yet.

they say the taste is worth it, whatever the price. maryam moshiri, bbc news. time for the weather now with alina jenkins. hello, the early may bank holiday temperature record has been broken, beating the previous record of 23.6 setback in 1999. some exceptions, cloud over northern ireland and scotland, with spells of such an exceptin scotland, with spells of such an except in the far north—west of scotla nd except in the far north—west of scotland which will see patchy light rain. missed for the irish sea coast, somewhat cooler along the eastern coast that there will be a lot of sunshine between 2a and 26 celsius, perhaps between 28 and 29 to the west of london. this evening and overnight clearer skies for central and eastern areas, further west will see more cloud thickening

across northern ireland later in the night ‘s reign by dawn and lows generally between nine and 1a celsius, cooler along the eastern coast. central and eastern areas dry tomorrow, further west mollgaard, and breadth of rain for north—west england and maybe north wales, some sharp showers but keeping the warmth with highs across south east england and east anglia 26 but pressure towards the west. this is bbc news — our latest headlines. vladimir putin is sworn in for a fourth term as president of russia, promising to improve the lives of the russian people. it marks 18 years in power. the metropolitan police is continuing to investigate four shootings injust 2a hours in london — which left one teenager dead and three others injured. president trump is being warned by the foreign secretary,

borisjohnson, that pulling out of the iran nuclear deal could lead to a middle east arms race. now on bbc news it's time for witness. hello, and welcome to witness with me, tanya beckett. i'm here at the british library to guide you through more extraordinary moments from recent history. we'll meet a norwegian diplomat who helped organise secret peace negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians, resulting in the first—ever peace agreement between the two sides. we'll talk to one of the canadian

war brides who sailed across the atlantic after world war ii in a mass emigration programme. and we'll hear from a survivor of a brutal campaign of repression by zimbabwean soldiers in 1983. but we start with the incredible story of a child survivor of belsen, a nazi concentration camp. hetty verolme was interviewed by the bbc at the time of her liberation in april 1943, and now she's shared her memories with witness. i passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare. the living lay with their heads against the corpses, and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people. this is what the germans did. if you gave up hope,

then within two days you were dead. you get used to a lot of things which you think you couldn't get used to. we always were hungry. half a slice of bread in the morning, and half a slice of bread in the night. 90% of the people were sick with typhus, and that's why we had so many dead. the dead bodies, in the end we didn't see them any more, and we didn't smell them any more. we werejewish, that's why we were brought here. when my mother was taken away my two brothers cried terribly and wouldn't let her go, but i had to be strong for my brothers. we knew the significance

of staying alive. if there was danger, if you said "shh", they were quiet. they didn't make a sound. when the british came on sunday 15th of april, we were very, very happy. we couldn't believe it. they said with a loudspeaker that we would get food, and it was the next day in the morning they delivered hot tea with sugar in. it was the first decent thing we had for weeks. a few days after the liberation, i was interviewed by patrick gordon walker, and he was from the bbc. they speak german. how old are you?

15 years. and how long have you been in this camp, belsen? 1a months. did your parents come with you? yes. and are they still with you? no. this is the area i was interviewed. i was happy to tell him the story, and i wanted to know where my parents were. they didn't know. so, can you read what it says here? "here rest 2500." many children died in the war, in the second world war. i hope they rest in peace. we were very lucky, my father and mother and my two brothers

and i came back from three different concentration camps. i'm sometimes surprised at young people. they don't know what the holocaust is. you have to explain it to them. when i'm not there any more, i hope that somebody will, like you, will remind the world that it did happen. it did happen. it doesn't matter if things are bad and very dark, you must believe that tomorrow will be a better day. the remarkable hetty verolme, a child survivor of belsen, a nazi concentration camp. next we are off to oslo where, in the early 1990s, two norwegian diplomats played a vital role in secret peace negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians. mona juul tells us about her part

in the oslo peace accords of 1993. the once unthinkable moment had arrived, and two of the world's bitterest enemies have become allies. it was a very, very special moment, and very emotional. we were completely exhausted, so it was all of us having been involved working day and night for almost a year. a husband and wife team succeeded in unlocking the israel— palestinian impasse by working behind—the—scenes, away from the media circus in the united states. the fact that we could offer them to come to peaceful norway, far away from the conflict. we told them we can facilitate secrecy, which was an absolute condition for them, and they relaxed in ourcompany. nobody sitting there

and making judgment, "no, you should do this, no, this is not possible." we left it 100% up to them. in the tranquil setting of the norwegian fjords, for the past nine months a secret channel forged the way to peace. the israel and the palestinian chief negotiators hit it off extremely well, and between the two of them, and i think among all of them that were involved, there was so much talk about their families, their upbringing. it turned out that both the two negotiators had daughters called maya. there were so many times that i felt that this was not going anywhere. like i think it is in most negotiations, it is a roller—coaster.

it goes ups and downs. humour played an important part in these negotiations. suddenly they came out and they told me "this is over, we can't do it." "very sorry." "you did a lot of good work", they told me, "but this is impossible". and i thought, "oh, my god". and everything sort of... and then suddenly they burst out in laughter, "joking!" "we have a deal!" it made it... it humanised the whole conflict. by august 19, when shimon peres arrived in oslo for a prearranged official visit, the deal was virtually done. any peace agreement is a compromise.

i feel extremely privileged to have been able to watch truly arch enemies coming together, with a little help from us. i want to express my congratulations and praise for the courage and the vision displayed by the israeli and palestinian leadership, and for the crucially helpful role played by norway. i mean, we have to remember that this was life and death for them. but, in order to do that, you have to have strong leadership, and i still maintain that you had that on both sides at the time. in oslo, private celebrations for the couple who helped bring about today's historic middle east accord. i'm a true believer

in passionate diplomacy. it is never wrong to bring people together. norwegian diplomat mona juul, who tried to bring peace to the middle east. next to kenya, and the story of the late dame daphne sheldrick, the pioneering conservationist who, in the 1980s, became the first person to rear successfully orphaned baby african elephants. in 2016, she spoke to witness. we know them almost as well as our own children, and we love them equally, because an elephant can read your heart. and you're not going to be successful unless you love that animal. i was born in kenya, in nakuru, and i have lived here all my life. i fell in love with david sheldrick and married david in 1960. he was very well—known as the pioneer warden of tsavo national park.

i have raised nearly all species of african wildlife orphans. buffaloes, rhinos, giraffes, but the elephants have been the greatest challenge. poaching was a problem, a huge problem. it still is a huge problem. we had orphaned elephants that came in older, aged three and four, you know, their mothers had died during the drought or been shot by poachers, but we never managed to keep an infant elephant alive. david died in 1977, and that is when we set up the david sheldrick wildlife trust to try and carry on his work. the big leap was the infant elephants. nobody had managed to do that. the first two orphaned elephants

we managed to raise from early infancy was in 1987. the first elephant that came in, we did not even have a stable. it slept in my daughter's bedroom, and it sort of grew from that. but in infancy, they are very, very difficult to raise. they are exceedingly fragile. an elephant as an infant is milk dependent for the first three years of life. it needs milk up until the age of five. they cannot tolerate the fat in cows‘ milk, that kills them straightaway. they get diarrhoea and you lose them overnight. they dehydrate very quickly. then i went around trying to find baby formulas that had mainly vegetable fat. and that worked. you know, with difficulty, it was not ideal, it is not mother's milk. and over the years we have

managed to raise over 200 through the nursery, but we have probably lost almost that number as well. when they lose their elephant family there is a lot of stress involved, grief. i mean, they mourn and grieve the elephant familyjust as we do, and during that time you can have a lot of problems. you have to calm them down, you can only do that with a lot of tender loving care, and with the input of the other elephants. we have got a wonderful team of keepers, people that really care about elephants, and love what they are doing. they are my kids, yes. they all have different personalities, but i love them all. the best part of it, they never forget those guys who took care of them when they were young, so they do come back from time to time. we always want to reintegrate it

and return it back where it belongs, and if the animal loves you enough, it will come back to you. you see that with our ex—orphans. when they have their wild—born babies, they bring them back to share with the keepers that raised them themselves through childhood. the best gift you can give a wild animal is to set it free. dame daphne sheldrick, who sadly died in april 2018. remember, you can watch witness every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on all of our films along with more than a thousand radio programmes in our online archive. just go to bbc.co.uk/witness. next, we go to zimbabwe. in 1983, where, after the war of independence, robert mugabe sent troops to matabeleland in the west of the country to put down opposition supporters. and a warning, this report contains distressing material. thousands of zimbabweans have been

killed by the soldiers of mr mugabe's fifth brigade. the gukurahundi, the whirlwind. well done. robert mugabe, he was a power—monger. they were taking people, slaughtering them all over. my family was shot by the army, with my grandfather and his two sons. did they question them before they shot them? no. they just walked into the village and shot them? yes. innocent people, they were being killed by the mugabe regime. mugabe's zanu party draws most of its support from the majority shona tribe. in matabeleland, support

for nkomo's zapu comes from the minority ndebele. joshua nkomo, grand old man of african nationalism. to these people, he is king of matabeleland. it is the rivalry between these two men that threatens zimbabwe with tribal conflict. zanu is the people's party, and all those who stand outside it must come into the zanu family or else they are rejected by the people. the beatings, the killings, the torture, it is unbelievable, unbelievable. people are being taken daily, at night, and they disappear forever. i heard a knock. i opened the door. they took me to the cell where i spent three solid weeks being beaten day and night, tortured. they were using bayonets.

others who were pregnant, they were opening their stomach. "you are carrying the son or a child of a dissident." i still remember, my uncle was killed with castration. a human being. really? i will never forget it. there has been all kinds of propaganda made against the fifth brigade. trained by the north koreans, mugabe's praetorian guard. they told all kinds of stories, but they failed to prove them. he is a liar.

a big liar. they should have to go to court. how many bodies do you think are buried here in this pit? over50 bodies, maybe, inside here. they are just shut in, with the trees and so forth. all these years, there was fear to talk about it. now i am brave to say about it. the world needs to see all these things. mr s ncube recalling the harrowing massacres in matabeleland. he still lives in bulawayo with his family. our next film is about canadian war brides who sailed from the uk to canada to join the husbands they married during world war ii. betty hawkins was one of them.

since 1939, some 211,000 british girls have married canadians. 3,000 of them already have been sent to canada by the department of immigration. we left our families and our relatives, ourfriends, for this one man that we were in love with. it was a marvellous thing the canadian government did, and i mean, they moved 117,000 women and over 22,000 children. this canadian soldier who became my husband was a very nice looking guy. i was 18 or 19 years old when i met him. it was a case of being young, being in love, he asked me

to marry him, i asked my mother. she seemed to think it was a good idea. more wives and kiddies of canadian servicemen are off on their adventurous trip to the land of opportunity across the sea. it was a one—way trip. we did not know these men very well when we agreed to marry them. on arrival at the port, everybody was safely stowed aboard the ship which would take them on their long journey. we sailed over. it took ten days. we wondered what it was going to be like, of course. canada is proud of her 18,000 adopted daughters who have been able to learn about canadian life through pamphlets and classes. we did not know a thing, except canada was vast.

all we could see was snow. when i first came to this house, there was no running water, there was no electricity, there was no bathroom. we did not have a lot of money. ken had to work away quite a lot. i think that, i will admit, that is probably why i had eight children. when husbands have to work away, you're glad to see them when they come back. a lot of us were very brave, or else rather silly, i do not know which. but it was, let's say, an adventure. betty hawkins, reminiscing about her post—warjourney to canada and her life with her husband there. that's all from witness this month here at the british library.

we will be back next month with more first—hand accounts of extraordinary moments in history. but for now, from me, and the rest of the team, goodbye. hello, it is a record—breaking weekend, we have broken the temperature record set in 1999, in the last hour gosport reached 24.7 celsius, it was 23.6 celsius the record we had to beat in hampshire. temperatures will get even higher,

28, maybe 29 celsius for parts of south—east england. but the warmth and sunshine is not everywhere, there's cloud over northern ireland and scotland, some patchy light rain and scotland, some patchy light rain and some mist and mud along irish channel coasts. cooler conditions the further ease you are, where we have the sunshine there is a lot of it, temperatures widely between 24 and 26 celsius, a fee degrees higher for south—east england. for this evening and overnight clearer skies across central and south—east england, some missed and merck for north—west england and eventually thicker cloud for northern ireland and scotland, lows overnight typically between nine and 14 celsius, they will build our to egg cloud, some of that train getting into north west of england and north—westwards lead in the day, further south varane fizzles out but head of it we could catch sharp

showers to the afternoon. still very warm in south—east england and east anglia, further west fresher, that's a theme to the middle of the week, as these fronts the east would notice how the orange and yellow colours are with blue colours, feeling fresh of all of us. on wednesday another fun from the west, and briggs of rain for northern ireland, north—west england and wales and south—west england later in the day, just about dry, maybe seeing 21 celsius across south—east england but look further west for fresher conditions and as that front then sweeps eastwards wednesday evening and into thursday all of us will be in the fresher air. that front may keep some cloud and a spot of rain across eastern coasts on thursday, further west spots of sunshine but also some showers, although it is the temperatures we we re although it is the temperatures we were notice come thursday after that earlier warmth and the start of the week, temperatures by thursday it back down to where they should be for the time of year between 13 and

17 celsius. the theme this week is that things will slowly turn cooler, there will be some rain at times and some sunshine as well. that's all from me. bye bye. this is bbc news. the headlines: extra police on patrol in london, after three shootings in just 24 hours leave one teenager dead and three others injured. vladimir putin is sworn in for a fourth term as president, promising to improve the lives of the russian people. translation: we are open to dialogue along with our partners, we stand for equal partnership with every state in the interests of peace and stability on the planet. record breaking weather for a bank holiday in may as temperatures reach 24.2 degrees in east sussex. the hottest for 40 years for some.

people here are basking in the sunshine enjoying the heatwave.