with the police, helping us as masqueraders, keeping us safe, so it is better than before. also, this is the 70th anniversary of the windrush generation, of course. migrants who came from the caribbean islands, and who are in some ways responsible for this carnival. how important is it we remembered on what they did for this country? very important because our grandparents, before that, mums, dad, they represented and it is our turn to represent where we are from, all the countries coming together, and we just have fun. speaking of fun, you have to show us dance. how do you guys dance? very quickly. that's it! you get the sense that the party is now under way. police made 133 arrests yesterday, 42 people detained for drug offences, so they will be keeping an eye on how that unfolds throughout the day and plenty more to come in the next hour. let's see if there will be any rain.

it is looking much better than it was yesterday. some pretty atrocious conditions across the uk and we didn't see much sunshine. that is what we have got this morning in some parts. this is in london from one of our weather watchers. but there is still quite a bit of cloud around and western areas with some outbreaks of rain and showers affecting parts of scotland, north west england, wales and south—west england as well. through the afternoon, it is looking mostly dry with temperatures getting up to 17 or 21 degrees, so warmer than yesterday. overnight, the cloud melts away had lengthy clear spells for england and wales but the rain comes into the western parts of northern ireland and scotland by the

early hours of the morning. temperatures in the countryside will be lower than this, so single figures to start on tuesday morning. but there will be plenty of dry weather and sunny spells with temperatures getting up into the high teens or the low 20s. goodbye. hello. this is bbc news. a summary of the latest news: an official un report accuses myanmar‘s military of carrying out genocide against its rohingya population and criticises the country's leader, aung san suu kyi, for failing to intervene. food prices are expected to rise in the coming months as farmers feel the effects of this year's extreme weather. the campaign calling for a new brexit referendum is attempting to change labour party policy on the issue, according to a leaked memo. police in florida are working to establish why a gunman opened fire at a video games tournament injacksonville, killing two people. now on bbc news, it's witness.

hello, and welcome to witness with me, razia igbal. in this programme, we'll hear from five witnesses about their involvement in extraordinary moments in 20th—century history. we'll talk to the man who helped rewrite african history, and meet the lesbian protester who invaded a live news studio. we'll travel to burma to follow a story of one woman's involvement in the burmese uprising. and head to italy to hear how one of europe's most daring engineering projects helped bring the french

and italians together, just 20 years after the second world war. but we start with an individual whose mission has been to make the world a better place for animals. up until 1998, an horrific tradition, that was centuries—old, could be seen in town squares across bulgaria — chained bears being forced to dance to music. after this horrendous practice was finally banned, the retired and often alcoholic bears needed a place to go. dr amir kamil has been telling witness how he convinced his government that he could rehabilitate the bears. in 1998, it was clear that they announced that brown bears are a protected species. but to protect them, where to put them? for me it was a huge challenge.

in the heart of the bulgarian capital sofia's commercial and political centre, a sight from mediaeval times. a 1a—month—old brown bear. she's muzzled and chained by rings through her nose and upper lip to her master. dancing bear was a cultural problem in bulgaria. over 300 years, a tradition. how these bears are trained, they were taking the bear cub and putting them on a metal hotplate, very hot, like really, like fire. they smear the sole of the leg of the bear with vaseline, not to be burnt, and they start to play with small, instrumental music. and they put the bear above this fire, above this hotplate, and the bear, he start to move his leg up and down because it's burning him. and they repeat this procedure many times till the bear, when he hear this music, he start to move his leg, and this is how they would start the dancing bear. the bear was also alcoholic. i mean, we see the bear and the bear owners in these times have one hobby.

to make the bear working many hours per day, the bear have to drink also alcohol, like his owner. i met some owners who had their bears drinking whiskey or vodka or beer, sometimes 11 bottles of beer per day. so we tried to work with the public, we tried to make a lot of publicity about the situation, and step by step, month by month, a lot of hotel owners in sofia, on the seaside, refused that the owner of the bear and his bears come to dance in front of his hotel. this bear were born in captivity, he don't have the chance to learn how to survive in the wild, so we cannot let them to the wild. it was very clear that we needed to build a sanctuary. for me, it was a huge challenge, like really how to get the first three bears, how to convince and to prove to the government that this project is possible. this is a retirement house

for all the dancing bears. so the first time, when i have the chance to bring the bears here to the dancing bear park, first, i was very excited. we had to wait all night outside till the morning came. so i had to dart the bear, to remove the chain and to bring the bear inside the enclosure. to be honest, i was very scared because i don't know how the bear will react. he wakes up without a chain, what will he do? he is a wild animal still. so i was scared, and i think the bear also was scared. so when he woke up, i neverforget this moment. when he stood up, he was looking and he was afraid to walk, even he was able to walk, he was afraid to go step in front because he was just chained and tied. and how he stand and smell, hejust smell. there is no chain, no owner, just food, he is free. in bulgaria, there are no

more dancing bears. the last dancing bear in bulgaria was rescued in september 2007. this tradition was from the middle ages, it does not exist anymore, and it will never come back again. sadly, the practice still goes on in some places across the globe. now let's travel back hundreds of years to great zimbabwe. this ancient city was thought to have dominated southern and eastern africa with its trade in gold. but when its ruins were discovered by white colonial explorers, they claimed it couldn't have been built by black africans. in the early 1980s, the newly independent zimbabwe looked to shake off this version of events and asked dr ken mufuka, who grew up near the site, to write a new history of the city. this is one of the most remarkable sites in africa. these are the corridors of power of an ancient african civilisation.

this is great zimbabwe. everybody in power wants to control history because it brings them legitimacy. the europeans said that the africans did not build the ruins. they belonged to somebody else, the phoenicians, the arabs, the queen of sheba, anybody else except the africans. the great zimbabwe was the greatest civilisation south of egypt. it carried about 10,000 people, so that was quite a large city. it was also the centre of religion and the economy of zimbabwe, it was gold. it could be traced as far back as 1100. i was raised about ten miles away. i was obsessed with history, so i visited it as a child. there was a bus to the great

zimbabwe but this was for tourists. blacks were not allowed there. but we'd just turn up and if there are no white visitors, you can wander about. the structures are massive. the stones are chiselled to be exactly the same size and they are not connected by mortar or cement. we felt in some ways deprived of what belonged to us, that we belonged to a great people, but we are oppressed by the colonial regime. when europeans first saw great zimbabwe in the 1890s, they could not believe that so imposing a structure could have been built by the ancestors of the africans they found living there. zimbabwe was not built by either blacks or whites. the people who built it were semitic, they were brown

in colour and were evidently people who were a mix of arabs and jewish people. the europeans, they are going there to civilise africans, who were in darkness, who have no history. so if they accepted that some of these africans had these wonderful civilisations, their reasoning would fall apart. on april18th, 1980, zimbabwe became independent. singing. it was a great moment for us. history became important. they were going to find a new identity by going into the past. i was the first black director of national nuseums. i was supposed to use my abilities as a writer to write a new manual for the great zimbabwe, getting away from the eurocentric interpretation, so that that heritage could be reclaimed. it was one of my happiest times,

but it was also full of challenges because the politicians, they insisted that i must say that the great zimbabwe was built by revolutionaries. and i refused. i said, "no, there's nothing revolutionary there. "they're just ordinary people doing as they were told by the king." they were angry with me, and i had to leave zimbabwe in a hurry. dr ken mufuka showing why it's important to question our interpretation of history. in 1988 new laws were being introduced in the uk limiting gay rights. section 28, as it was known, banned the teaching of homosexuality in schools. on the evening the proposal was due to become law, the main bbc news studio had some unexpected visitors. the six o'clock news from the bbc, with sue lawley and nicholas witchell.

it's six o'clock. shouting in studio. stop section 28! we are protesting about rights for lesbian and gay people. in general, britain was quite a hostile environment in the 1980s for the lgbt community. about 75% of people, when surveyed, said that it was mostly or always wrong to be gay. simply by walking down the street, if somebody identified you as lesbian or gay, you could get abuse and you could be violently attacked, just for being. i obviously don't want children taught that the gay and lesbian lifestyle is natural or normal. it is not, it never has been, and it never will be. yes, my overriding concern is with the promotion of positive images of homosexuality in schools, from primary school right through, and that is what is causing many parents real concern and offence. there was this sort of catalyst

moment where a book was published, called jenny lives with eric and martin, about a girl who lives with her two dads. and it sort of kicked off a moral panic in parliament. what we were told we were doing was destroying the heterosexual family, so that lobby group to get this clause enacted. section 28 banned local authorities from promoting homosexuality, the second part of it banned the teaching of homosexuality in schools. basically, it meant closing down services, so young people became very vulnerable particularly, and schools couldn't protect people from being bullied. all kinds of groups all over the country began to protest. actor ian mckellen was at the head of a procession which stretched nearly two miles. a group of lesbians chained themselves to buckingham palace gates dressed as suffragettes. a group of lesbians abseiled into the house of lords. through all of the campaigning prior to the enactment,

we could not get the media to understand what the impact was going to be on our community, on our children. so really the only thing left was to actually be the news by being on the news. we met outside television centre. we managed to get through the security. the whole thing was timing really. and as soon as the lights changed, we barged into the studio. the whole place went mad. i got smacked to the ground by i don't know how many people. one of our members managed to handcuff herself to a camera, and the other got behind the news desk, where she was quite violently subdued by nicholas witchell, who has since apologised. sue lawley carried on trying to read the news. i do apologise if you are hearing quite a lot of noise in the studio at the moment. i am afraid we have rather been invaded. in the footage it all got rather muffled.

you can hear muffled shouts of "stop section 28". eventually we were all arrested. it did get huge media coverage. the headlines were all about loony lesbians, but over time, and beyond that, i have heard from quite a lot of people what it meant to them as young lgbt people in their own home, knowing that they were gay but maybe not out, just feeling a bit empowered by it. section 28 was repealed in 2003 in the uk. remember, you can watch witness every month on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on all of ourfilms, along with more than 1,000 radio programmes in our online archive. just go to the bbc.co.uk/witness. now we head to burma, to look back at a revolt against the military government that happened 30 years ago this month. the uprising led to the emergence of a new opposition leader, aung san suu kyi.

the protest reached its peak on 8th august, 1988. ma thida was a young medical student in rangoon at the time. newsreel: the main cause of the rioting is burma's economic crisis. the demonstrations are led by students demanding economic reforms and a return to democracy. it was like the whole country was in the mood of the protests. today, there have been more clashes with troops in the suburbs of rangoon. several times, troops have opened fire on the crowds. the way the government took action against this was very violent. very militant. some students were killed. one of my friends was shot. the medical professionals, they were taking the lead. and then the rangoon general hospital became the central place for the protests. it was a very big rally

inside the rangoon general hospital, and the truck arrived, and the government army shot, just randomly, into the hospital. we tried to help some injured people. i never treated a gunshot wound patient in the past. it was shocking to treat gunshot wound injured people. so many patients at the same time, it is a little bit difficult to handle. at rangoon general hospital, aung san suu kyi addressed tens of thousands of people who had gathered. at that time, aung san suu kyi was not well known by the international community. a woman who, for the last 20 years, has lived in england. her father was assassinated when aung san suu kyi was just two. she returned quietly to burma in april after years away. that was the very emotional moment.

her speech was really groundbreaking, i think. hercommitment, her vision for our country. with the army on the streets, there is a mood of fear in rangoon tonight. the situation after the crackdown in septemberwas even worse than the situation for further protests. it does seem most of the army is backing the coup. i had no choice, i already believed in the revolution, i couldn't stop any more. i expected one day i might be arrested. i was arrested in 1993. it was a couple of days just before my 27th birthday. i was a little bit excited to be in prison, because i really wanted to write my own prison memoir.

i spent five years and six months in prison, in solitary confinement throughout the prison term. after i was released i went back to the hospital. a quite unforgettable moment. aung san suu kyi, a free woman, walking to meet her people. we are having such a high expectation to aung san suu kyi. i want to run for president, and i'm quite frank about it. if we go back 10 years ago the situation was really bad, the current situation is still not yet enough, so we still are hoping. in ourfinalfilm we head to the italian—french alps, for a story of post—war union and cooperation. by the time of its completion,

the mont blanc tunnel was three times longer than any previous tunnel in the world. franco cuaz was the project's first operations manager. newsreel: a road tunnel under mont blanc. the dream of decades has come true, and the paris—rome motorjourney is cut by 300 miles. to both france and italy this was a historic occasion, and the joint opening ceremony was performed by general de gaulle and president saragat. from here, this looks a pretty big hole, but when you think of the size of the mountains through which it is being driven, it is rather like trying to drive a needle through the granite foundations of edinburgh castle. a great story of international cooperation and engineering. that is 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 witness team, goodbye.

hello. good morning. today will be a much better day than yesterday. we had almost half the august rainfall falling in south wales through yesterday. today, much drier conditions. some sunshine out there. a couple of showers dotted around mainly in western areas, so some rainbows, as you can see from our weather watchers. through this week, not much rain in the forecast actually, largely dry. pressure is

building and as a result it will turn just that bit warmer as well. all the rest of today, you may experience a few showers across parts of scotland and north west england, wales and some in the south—west as well. but otherwise for most of us to the dry afternoon. there will be quite a bit of cloud but still some holes developing to give brighter spells. temperatures 17 to 21, so feeling a touch warmer to yesterday. through this evening and overnight, we keep dry weather, and overnight, we keep dry weather, and the cloud will melt away. some late afternoon and early evening sunshine. cloud increase across the far north west and rain moving into the west of scotland. beneath the clear skies, it will turn quite chilly. temperatures in the countryside getting into single figures. in towns and cities, nine to 13. this is tuesday. for england and wales, glorious start with sunshine around and some cloud building into the afternoon. cloud thickening across scotland as northern ireland with rain moving

into the west. quite persistent in western scotland during the afternoon. temperatures tomorrow fairly similarto afternoon. temperatures tomorrow fairly similar to today, about 17 to 21. at rain in the north west is associated with this weather front here which will stick with us into wednesday before fading away. then we have this little sister moving out of france and pushing into southern areas. there is a chance of that bringing some heavy and thundery showers in the south—east and perhaps the odd shower in the south—west of england as well. the rain in the north westjust eases off, so things getting brighter here. for many of us, wednesday afternoon is dry and bright with spells of sunshine. and feeling quite pleasant where you have got the sunshine with temperatures in the sunshine with temperatures in the high teens and luke 20s. and for the high teens and luke 20s. and for the rest of the week and into the weekend, looking largely dry. some spells of sunshine and temperatures getting into the high teens and low 20s and indeed into next week things are looking mostly settled and it

should get warmer still. that is all from me. have a good afternoon. goodbye. this is bbc news. the headlines at midday: an official un report accuses myanmar‘s military of carrying out genocide against its rohynga population — and criticises the country's leader, aung san suu kyi, for failing to intervene. criminal investigation and prosecution is warranted focusing on the top tatmadaw generals in relation to the three categories of crimes under international law — genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. food prices are expected to rise in the coming months as farmers feel the effects of this year's extreme weather. the campaign calling for a new brexit referendum is attempting to change labour party policy on the issue — according to a leaked memo. also this hour: police in florida are working to establish why a gunman opened fire at a video games tournament,

killing two people.