and there ‘uc il at. a. and there will be be ongoing. and there will be possibilities to have trade negotiations ongoing and formal conclusions. she was pleased with this because she wanted legally binding conclusions, something she could say was legally binding on all of this. she describes this as formal conclusions that have legal status so they should be welcomed, so status so they should be welcomed, so arguably she was happy she is taking back something that is legally binding. when you have phrases like endeavour, which is what was written in the final conclusion, it is arguably technically a legal word. we had heard talking about that robust conversation that she had earlier with jean—claude juncker and there is a question over what you was talking about. was she referring to that press conference last night where he described her as being nebulous and imprecise? unless you

area lip nebulous and imprecise? unless you are a lip reader it is hard to say but she was saying it is good to be able to have robust conversations. they have that kind of relationship they can have robust conversations underlining the eu likes talking to her. she is the negotiator and she was talking about, she suggested he wasn't talking about her when he was using that phrase nebulous and imprecise, he was talking about the level of debate. picking up on the specifics with chris morris. he has been poring over the press conference. we heard theresa may saying that she has something illegal. as she? is a statement from the 27. what it is not is what many interpreted among her backbenchers as some sort of legal guarantee that

we re as some sort of legal guarantee that were change the status of the backstop. it reaffirms what the eu has been saying all along which is that we are not going to renegotiate the legal text in the withdrawal agreement but yes this is supposed to be temporary, we do not want to come into effect anyway, it is a last and if we come into —— if it comes into effect we will use our best endeavours, which has a legal sense, to make sure it only lasts for as short a time as possible. the problem is we are where we started. that is not a guarantee that there is any time limit on this backstop or the is any unilateral way to get out of it. the prime minister said there will be further discussions over the coming days. they would not surprise me to see another document, noted january before a meaningful vote before parliament which the

government has said will take place before the 21st of january but any document cannot go against the legal language in the withdrawal agreement. if the dead they could not sit alongside each other. within that final conclusion because last night, the date, there will be negotiations up until 2020, december 2020. what does that mean technically for the whole situation? morse which the eu is trying to handover. 0ne morse which the eu is trying to handover. one of the things jean—claude juncker said was that handover. one of the things jean—claudejuncker said was that if this deal gets ratified in the house of commons at the european parliament then the eu is willing to start preparations of a work on those trade negotiations straightaway. previously it had been quite legalistic and said none of that could begin until you have left. now it is saying we can see it as soon as you have passed it. pass

it and we can get on with it. they are trying to make things easier. they are saying we want a good trade relationship in the future. none of that means the elephant in the room is taken out, the backstop is still there. a weapon of last resort for certain but that is not simply going to be removed which is what many backbenchers have been calling for. ireland did not want that. you cannot have a legal timescale on the backstop. then it is not a backstop anymore. if you look at the original language, the corresponding summit this time last year is when the uk and the eu both agreed in principle that there would have to be some sort of guarantee that if there was no future trade agreements in place to keep the irish border as open as it is now there would be best thing that eventually came to be cold the backstop that would ensure that trade across the border could be as

frictionless as it is now. the problem is how do you do that in the long term without staying in a customs union and without northern ireland staying in most of the rules of the single market? that is the issue when it comes to seeing if there were to be a backstop would not want to carry on for very long. no one really knows what can replace it. members of the european research group say there are technological solutions out there. maybe in a few yea rs solutions out there. maybe in a few years technology will be able to play a much bigger role but there is no border anywhere in the world right now in which the technology is in use in a way that would solve the problems on the irish border. good to have you with us to talk that through the files. as theresa may was saying she seemed content with that being a legal clarification, a legal status, and she said that

should be welcomed, but the backstop does not need to be... that there will be agreement so that will not live to be a backstop and commenting on the fact that she has got... it is good to have robust conversations with colleagues and with the jean—claude juncker, the reference to that animated discussion she had, images of which have been doing the rounds. we heard her reaction to this eu summit. good afternoon, here's your latest sports news. for the second time in a week, chelsea fans face allegations of offensive behaviour. first of all, four fans were banned from their ground, after allegedly racially abusing the manchester city player raheem sterling. now the club has had to condemn reports of anti—semitic chanting during last night's europa league game. a statement released by the club says...

brighton manager chris hughton, who has been outspoken about a lack of diversity in football, says respect will only come if there is more inclusion in the game. inclusion in our game means management at top level, management at board level, management if i am looking at the fa and the premier league, having that type of inclusion in the top roles. i have spoken on many occasions what i feel about the lack of black managers at the highest level as such. i think

what is good for our game is total inclusion and that is what everybody wa nts to inclusion and that is what everybody wants to see. it's the fight that everyone has been hoping would happen, and anthonyjoshua has confirmed he does want to fight deontay wilder next year. he'd already booked wembley for the 13th of april, all that's missing is an opponent. joshua holds the ibf, wbo and wba belts but the winner of this bout would make one of them the undisputed champion of the heavyweight division. after wilder's draw with tyson fury earlier this month, there has talk of a possible rematch, but most boxing fans want to see either fighter face joshua, who has said he's "not interested in fury because he's not the champion". london and manchester are on a shortlist of cities to host the atp world tour finals from 2021. the end of season tournament for the world's top eight male players has been held in london since 2009, but that agreement expires in 2020. singapore, tokyo and turin are the other contenders. a decison on the next host city will be made by march at the earliest. justin rose is on course to finish the year as world number one.

he needs to finish in the top 12 at the indonesian masters. and at the end of second round, rose is 8 under par and is currently tied fifth. three indonesian players lead the way. poom sa ksa nsin out in front on 14 under. former england spinner ashley giles looks set to replace andrew strauss as england's director of cricket. strauss is stepping down as his wife is undergoing cancer treatment. giles is finalising the contract details to take over — he used to be england's one day coach — and will be taking over at a critical time, with a home world cup and an ashes tour to australia next summer. two england forwards who were injured during the autumn international series will be back in action for their clubs this weekend. saracens lock george kruis has recovered from a calf problem and starts against cardiff blues in the champions cup tomorrow. and sale welcome back flanker tom curry. that's all the sport for now. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. that's bbc.co.uk/sport

prime minister theresa may has been speaking in brussels in the last half hour, she said she was "crystal clear" to eu leaders at the brussels summit about the need for assurances on the backstop in response to mps' concerns. mrs may welcomed commitments by the eu 27 to try to get a new trade deal completed quickly enough that the backstop would not be needed, and said that as formal conclusions from the summit they had "legal status". but she said that it was clear that "further clarification and discusssion" is possible. speaking earlier in the day, the irish prime minister leo varadkar said the european union is as one on the need for a border backstop in the withdrawal agreement. i'm very satisfied with the conclusions that we reached last night, which are that we, as the european union, stand by the withdrawal agreement that was negotiated. we don't believe it's up for renegotiation.

we are very keen to begin, as soon as it's ratified, talks on the future relationship, because we want to have a close future relationship with the united kingdom. as europe, we reaffirmed our commitment to the need for a backstop. notjust because it protects ireland and ensures there is no hard border between northern ireland and ireland, thus protecting the peace process and the good friday agreement, but also because it's a european issue, too, and an open border between northern ireland and ireland cannot become a back door to the single market. and that's why european countries also very strongly support the backstop. notjust an irish issue, very much a european issue, as well, and by resolving it in the withdrawal agreement, we can make sure that no side uses the threat of a border in ireland as part of leverage in the future relationship talks. so really, it's there for three reasons, notjust an irish issue, very much a european issue, as well. and also agreed to step up any preparations that we're making for the unlikely event of a no—deal

scenario, so happy with conclusions and very much a case of, in the european union, it being one for all and all for one. it's the busiest week of the year for royal mail as it endeavours to deliver millions of cards and parcels in time for christmas. this morning our business correspondent, ben thompson, was at a sorting office in swindon. this place is clearly pretty busy. they will deal with 2 million parcels and letters every day until christmas. they have taken on extra staff to make sure they have enough to cope with it. paul is one of the bosses. amanda is from the greetings card association. how do you get this right every year? it is a massive undertaking. it is. we have a great operational team. we start planning injanuary ready for the special event.

we bring in 23,000 support workers to support our core 120,000. we take on extra parcel facilities. dedicated centres to support the christmas peak. a huge amount of planning and a huge effort. what is interesting is we are told we are sending fewer letters but christmas cards are still big business. we senti billion christmas cards last year in the uk. the british send more than any other nation. 18—34—year—olds are sending more cards than a generation ago. cards are the way to send a special message. we buy those cards on the high street so that is good news as well. 94% of cards are bought in a high street store. 0nline is obviously also a factor but people like to see the card and feel it and open it.

nice to see you. just a few top tips, you have still got time to send the cards you need to. if you are sending second—class they have to be in the post by the 18th of december and first class by the 20th of december. special delivery you have another couple of days. it's one giant leap for tourism. the news that sir richard branson‘s rocket ship successfully travelled to the edge of space and back makes travel to the cosmos more possible than ever. it was virgin galactic‘s fourth attempt to get passengers flying on a rocket, and marks a milestone in the commercial space race. the firm's spaceshiptwo passenger rocket ship reached a height of 82.7km, beyond the altitude at which us agencies have awarded astronaut wings. eliza philipidis has this report. it looks like something

from a sci—fi movie. pilot: rolling to the right. this is vss unity — virgin galactic‘s spaceship that could soon be ferrying passengers out to space. it took off out of the californian desert attached to an aeroplane. once it reached around 43,000 feet, the pilots fired the rocket motors, taking the craft to an altitude of 51 miles. the company's boss couldn't have been prouder. well, we've been to space, and that's something that we've been looking forward to for 14 years, since we started virgin galactic. it's a historic day. i think it's the first commercial space ship company to actually put people into space. and, yeah, we're on top of the moon at the moment. virgin say they have more than 600 paid—up clients wanting a trip into space. those tickets were sold forjust under £200,000 for a 90—minute trip.

while the flight marked a milestone for virgin galactic, the firm's rivals, including tesla's elon musk and amazon'sjeff bezos, have already ventured further, though that's without people on board. meanwhile, virgin galactic say, in time, as they build more and more spaceships, thousands more people will have the opportunity of a trip into space. eliza philippidis, bbc news. scientists have been exploring what's become known as the "world's

most remote island". bouvet is a small volcanic rock in the south atlantic, more than a 600 miles from the nearest land. researchers are taking samples of its ice , they believe it will hold clues to the past behaviour of the winds that blow around the antarctic. jonathan amos has more. bouvet island is this extraordinary place in the south atlantic, literally in the middle of nowhere. it is a volcanic rock that comes out of the ocean. it is quite small, only about 60 square kilometres, but it is far away from anywhere. you would have to sail 2,500 kilometres to get to cape town. if you went in the other direction, trying to get to the antarctic, it's another 1500 kilometres. but it is in a really interesting spot in the south atlantic. it sits in the middle of the westerly winds, the winds that circulate around the antarctic continent. because of that, scientists think that in the ices that sit on top of the volcanic rock, there is a climate record that can tell them about the history of the winds. they have recently dropped onto the island on a helicopter, the only way you can get on and they have drilled down. they have taken the ices back to the lab to look for markers in the ice that might tell them about the action of wind.

so you get dust that goes into the ice layers when it is very windy. you get other stuff blown off the surface of the sea. they have discovered that the ice that they drilled only goes back to about 2001. if they go again to the island, they think they may be able to find a place where they can get a record which is hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old and this is why it is important. the wind is changing in the antarctic, getting stronger. as the wind gets stronger, it pulls up deep, warm water to the surface and that is getting under the glaciers of antarctica and melting them. we want to know what is the history of the winds. are they doing this because every so often they get stronger or is there a human impact? are humans causing the winds to get stronger and therefore driving climate change in the antarctic? this is the purpose and this is why bouvet island, strange as it is, is a very fascinating place to be. in a moment we'll have all the business news, but first the headlines on bbc news:

the prime minister warns the eu that it risks an accidental no—deal brexit if she can't convince parliament to back the withdrawal agreement which eu leaders say can't be changed. police in france shoot dead the gunman who attacked strasbourg's christmas market on tuesday. the market, which attracts thousands of visitors each year, has now reopened. the british yachtswoman whose boat capsized in a solo round the world race has made land in chile. now the business news. a new report suggests wages are still worth around a third less than they were a decade ago, in some areas. research from the trades union congress, the tuc, shows the average worker has lost nearly £12,000 in real earnings since 2008. travellers at some uk airports are barely being offered $1 us for each of their pounds, following a month of brexit uncertainty.

those exchanging pounds at the uk's biggestairport, heathrow, are finding as little as $1.05 coming back across the counter. and one in seven homes could be paying more than they need to for broadband and could get faster services for the same or less money, according to the regulator 0fcom. new research suggests that half of uk homes have not taken up faster services even though they are available. real wages, once you take out the effects of inflation, are worth a third less in some parts of the uk than 10 years ago. the figures were compiled by the tuc and are split up into different local authorities. what is unexpected about it is that the falls have come across all areas of the country, in both poor and rich districts. the worst off are the people of redbridge in london, in the supposedly affluent south

east. they are earning 34% less in real terms than in 2008. in only one quarter of districts were wages higher than ten years ago, and the tuc says it's the worst pay squeeze in 200 years. we arejoined by paul nowak, general secretary, tuc. what has happened? and families are waking up to the fact they are real incomes are lower than almost a decade ago and it has been caused by this squeeze on wages, the biggest since the napoleonic wars. the uk economy has become very good at creating low paid in secure employment. 0ne creating low paid in secure employment. one in nine people are working in an insecurejob on as zero hours contracts or on a casual contract than that of an impact on people's incomes and that is why the government needs to take this issue seriously to introduce concrete measures that would boost people's

pay packets. on the cause, if you go back to the financial crisis, you compared us to what has happened in other countries. many other countries lost jobs, we other countries. many other countries lostjobs, we did not reveal is that manyjobs, we paid for the financial crisis in lower wages, isn't that the best of a bad job? no. the people at the sharp end will be seeing that was ten years ago and what is the government doing to boost the money in my pocket? there are lots of practical things the government could do. they could boast the pay of public sector workers directly. they have done a national living in leeds. we have seen an increase in the living wage but we do not think it is enough. think about the bebop the work for the government. if you are a civil servant you have not had a real

terms pay rise for seven years. that is something the government could do just now. now is the time for paid to rise. we believe there is scope to rise. we believe there is scope to boost the pay of ordinary working people. what about the people of the gig economy, because you're organisations and unions generally do not have that go upon the workforce or the axis to the workforce or the axis to the workforce biggest have to be able to represent to the employers because they are so atomised? if you look at companies like uber unions have taken some ground—breaking legal cases to an employment rates for those workers and confirm the status of those workers being entitled to the national minimum wage. the government has to do more to support unions to go out and organise in

these new parts of the economy. it is very frustrating. 18 months ago matthew taylor produced a report for the government, a review of modern environment practices —— employment practices, and we have still seen no practical action from the government to ta ke practical action from the government to take forward even the limited recommendations on that report. if the government are serious about tackling will pay boost the pay of public sector workers at the national minimum wage and work with the unions to put money in people's pockets. thank you. the uk's advertising watchdog has said it will ban "gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence". the committees of advertising practice said harmful stereotypes in adverts "contribute to how people see themselves and their role in society", and can hold some people back. the ban will cover men struggling with household chores or girls being less academic than boys. sir richard branson has warned that the uk will be left

"near bankrupt" in the event of a hard brexit. he told the bbc he was "absolutely certain" that leaving the eu without a deal would lead to the closure of "quite a few british businesses". he said prime minister theresa may had admitted that her version of brexit was not as good as staying in the eu. french luxury giant lvmh has snapped up high—end hotel group belmond for a whopping £2.5 billion. the firms say they expect the deal to be completed in the first half of next year, subject to approval by belmond's shareholders and approval by the relevant competition authorities. belmond began over a0 years ago with the acquisition of hotel cipriani in venice. it now owns and operates a collection of high—end hotels around the world as well as offering rail and river cruises. not a huge amount of change in the tented terms —— percentage terms.

they bounced back last week seems to have faded. it is a weak euro at the moment but even weaker pound. the pound is really suffering at the moment. a statue of emmiline pankhurst has been unveilled in st peter's square in manchester to mark the centary of the day women voted for the first time in a general election. thousands marched from the pankhurst centre to st peter's square before hand. a young girl chosen from a local school made the case for the statue to the planning board. this is that she means a lot to me and my generation as a symbol of equality and a symbol of manchester being a foreword looking city. i look forward to the future...

cheering. three, two, one! isn't she amazing? rightfully here as well. we have some severe weather on the way this weekend especially for saturday so stay tuned to the forecast for travel plans. in the short—term things are not looking too bad. dry with plenty of sunshine. a few showers across

eastern areas which will be wintry and cloud developing across northern ireland. increasing amounts of rain and the chance of no into western scotland. as the rain gathers it will bump into the cold air and turn into snow. eventually into lower levels as well as higher ground. the culprits to all this rain and sleet and snow is this area of low pressure which is running into the cold air lying across the country that has been here for the past few days. this will cause significant disruption from snow and ice saturday into sunday. the met office haveissued saturday into sunday. the met office have issued an amber warning for this. through this weekend severe weather, rain, sleet, snow and ice and later in the south strong winds so it is likely we will see disruption to travel. head online to

see the latest weather warnings. 0n saturday we start cold across eastern areas and it turns wet and windy for northern ireland, much of wales and southern england. some minor flooding wales and southern england. some minorflooding in places. that pushes into the cold air and we are likely to see sleet and snow into east anglia and the north of england and for central and southern scotland, heavier into the late afternoon and evening. 2—5 centimetres at lower levels and more through the central belt. add on the strong winds and it is going to feel bitterly cold with the chance of blizzard conditions of the higher ground in the north. the heavy snow continues into sunday morning. slightly milder air moving in but also severe gales. into sunday the strong winds and sleet and snow eventually clears away from the

northern half. and through sunday and it will brighten up with plenty of sunshine. showers in the south and west. hello, you're watching afternoon live — i'm simon mccoy. today at 2pm: theresa may says there is still work to do on the brexit deal and admits having a "robust" conversation with the european commission president jean claude juncker. it it is in the overwhelming interest of all our people. in the eu and the uk, to get this done and as quickly as possible. safely on land — at last. the british yachtswoman susie goodall whose boat capsized in a solo round the world race arrives in chile. rocketing to the edge of space — virgin galactic‘s spaceshiptwo passenger rocket travels 50 miles above the earth — and brings space tourism one step closer. coming up on afternoon live all the sport. chelsea fans