‘ lot of cloud. satellite image. a lot of cloud. that is the direction it is going in. eight or nine celsius. some rain but not an awful lot across west of scotland. more or less the same in the evening. variable amounts of cloud. temperatures down to three celsius in the south, but real sports, a touch of frost. the north—east, north—eastern scotland also getting a bit of sunshine in the afternoon. the temperatures are similarto the afternoon. the temperatures are similar to what we have now. eight to 10 celsius. hello, this is bbc news with me, simon mccoy. the headlines: japan confirms it will restart commercial whale hunting in july, defying an international ban. despite queues for the boxing day sales, the number of people visiting the high street today falls for the third year in a row. several people have been injured and buildings collapsed, after an earthquake

close to the erupting mount etna in sicily. scientists in cambridge develop a virtual reality 3d model of a tumour in a bid to find new cancer treatments. now it's time to take a look back at the bbc‘s 100 women season and a special interview withjulia gillard, who made history when she became australia's first female prime minister. she tells yalda hakim about the misogynistic attacks she faced, and work she's done since leaving office to advance women and girls around the world. julia gillard made history when she became australia's first female prime minister. but her time in office was no easy ride, overshadowed by misogynistic and sexist attacks. since leaving office, she has sought to advance the cause of women and girls through the promotion of education. in this special 100 women interview, i asked her to draw on her personal experience, as well as give advice to women globally who are trying

to break through their own professional glass ceilings. let's start right from the beginning. you were born into a working—class family from wales. yourfamily emigrated to australia when you were four. your father had to leave school as a teenager to get work and, really, he then climbed the professional ladder in australia, but what they instilled in you and your sister was this understanding of the value of education. is that what has driven you professionally? yes, in many ways i think it is. in my family home, we were certainly taught that every day of school was a privilege and both my parents left school early for different reasons. dad simply because of poverty, mum because she was very unwell as a child and there was no system back then for still holding her in education, so it was that sort of love of education that led me

to take my first politically active steps, which were a long time ago now, when i was an undergraduate at adelaide university, and in my second year. so the first year i just sort of worked out what it was like to be at a university but then, in the second year, there were some big education funding cutbacks from a conservative government and i thought that was really wrong so i got involved in a protest campaign, so, if it had not been for that, who knows whether i would ever have got politically involved at the level that i ultimately did. because you trained as a lawyer in quite a fierce environment. do you think that sort of prepared you for your political career? i was always involved in putting arguments. you know, i was a high school debater, one of the nerdy kids, a high school debater and i liked, in student politics, the cut and thrust of it. you would have little elections and things like that, but you would have to put forward your case and try and persuade people of it.

and, of course, the law gives you the opportunity to sharpen your ability to put an argument. so all of those things, i think, came together to help, by that time i was standing up in the house of representatives trying to put a case before the parliament. you are seen as a trailblazer, a history maker. you were australia's first female prime minister. and then, since leaving office, you have said to a lot of women who want to go into politics, "look, go for it" but you've also repeatedly said there's this other bit, the misogyny bit, the sexism bit, "don't pretend that it isn't there". i mean, we you prepared for the kind of attacks that you came under? no, iwasn‘t, and i sort of entered into parliament not having really felt, in a personal way, sexism or misogyny. of course, i knew it existed. i was an active feminist at university. i thought the rate of change woud be pretty fast and, if you'd asked me back then, will all of this be fixed

by the time you're in your 40s or 50s, i would have said "yes, absolutely, it will all be fixed by then" but, you know, i did go into a law firm which was overwhelmingly male at the leadership level but even with that i didn't really feel directly sexism. so by that time i was prime minister and the sort of gendered abuse was flying, it did take me aback that it could get as bad as that, and that there was still so much sexism lying under the surface of our society and i think many other societies around the world. and you know, when it came to a woman leader, it sort of broke through. why were you surprised? i mean, australia is quite a patriarchal society, as advanced as it is, that's just a fact. well, i have to go all defence of my country at this point. i think australia is very similar to many countries at a similar stage of development and democracies, which is that we still do not

have anywhere near 50% women in parliament. women are not well represented on corporate boards as ceos, increasingly well—represented in the law but not in the news media. still not represented equally in technology. i think we share all of those factors with the world. yes, it is a blokey culture and many of our turns of phrase are, you know, sort of male, mateship, masculine terms of phrase. i never felt alienated by any of that, and i do not feel alienated by that now. what took me by surprise was something much more pointed and much sharper. what was that? really, it was the kind of go—to gendered insult, you know the signs outside parliament house saying, "ditch the witch", meaning me, referring to me as a "bitch", the way in which there were pornographic cartoons circulated about me, the incredibly vile and often violent things said on social media, the fact that much of the imagery

that was woven around me in the parliament and in the media was, when you look at it, gendered at its centre — all of that was more than i was expecting. when i came into the prime ministership, i sort of thought that the maximum reaction to me being the first woman would manifest in the early days, then everybody would kind of get over it and then it would converge to the norm for australian politics. and the norm is a pretty hard—hitting norm. you know, we play our politics pretty hard in australia... archive: for the information of the house, i have determined that there will be a ballot for the leadership and deputy leadership of the labor party at 4:30 today. in the meantime, take your best shot. but i was wrong, you know, actually the gendered stuff grew over time, it didn't dissipate. has that been addressed now, do you think? i do think some things have changed for the positive and one of the things i think has changed is, when i was prime minister, the most received wisdom

in the media was that gender did not in any way explain anything about my prime ministership. it was just wholly irrelevant. and that got written very expressly in the press. particularly after i spoke about misogyny in the parliament. many of the press gallery writers were, "no, this has nothing to do with gender". now, in australia, amongst the very same journalists who are still in the press gallery, there's a lively debate about sexism in politics and what role it has played in some recent events, so i think that that is progress, that people are actually looking at something happening on a political stage and asking themselves the question, "is gender playing a role here?" archive: well, i hope the leader of the opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing it out, his resignation, because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern australia, he doesn't need a motion in the house of representatives, he needs a mirror.

if you look atjulie bishop, australia's former foreign minister, she spoke out recently about the culture in canberra and, like you, she was trained as a lawyer, and she said, what she witnessed in canberra, the kind of appalling behaviour that she witnessed, she would not have tolerated 20 years ago as a lawyer, so really, even though we talk about these movements, these waves of change and journalists and people talking more about issues around gender, it does not feel like much has changed from your time. well, i think there is some good news, though. if i look at my political party, the labor party, which people would say was the most male, the most sort of blokey, full of mateship, because of its connections with the trade union movement, when i look back at myjourney in the labor party, in the mid—1990s, we fought for an affirmative action target to get more women into parliament and, way back then, we were sort of neck—and—neck with the liberal party as to how many women

were in the national parliament. it wasn't a good figure — it was around about 1a%, so not great. we adopted a target and here we are, all these years later, and we've been as high as 48% and i think at the next election, on the labor side, we might well hit 50%. you have said that you went into politics to make a difference in education. what did you mean by that? well, because it was the big golden thread for me, the thing that got me motivated to first raise my voice politically, it was incredibly important to me that i was involved in discussions about the politics of opportunity. it has always sat very heavily with me that we migrated to adelaide, my parents did not know anything about the city, we did not have any relatives in the city, it was a condition of our migration that you had a housing deposit. they picked a house, you know, it could have been anywhere else in adelaide, theyjust happened to pick that house and, fortunately for me, the government schools

that we were in the zoned districts for, were great government schools. if my parents had gone, "no, let's go to that suburb, or that suburb or that suburb," everything could have been different. and that lottery of postcode and opportunity has always offended me and it was something that i was very determined, through politics, to make a difference to. you've talked about the importance of women being empowered — the only way that they can be empowered is through girls getting an education. shouldn't we be focusing on boys and their education to change society? 0h, absolutely. i mean, this is — you know, if we look at our own societies and our own journey of change — and it is a continuing journey there is still so much more to do — certainly, greater educational achievements by women have made a very big difference for women's outcomes. i mean, my mother did not finish secondary school. ifinished university with two degrees. what's the difference in our lives?

well, a lot of it comes back to that opportunity for education. but to achieve true equality is not just going to be a journey for women saying we want, we need, we require change, it is going to be a journey that men need to be on, to be partners in that change and i think a truly equal world would be a better world for everyone. when we look at places like nigeria and the chibok girls, afghanistan and a lot of the achievements that are now rolling backwards, almost, even pakistan and the situation with malala, i mean, is change really happening? yes, it is. and yes, there are plenty of places in the world where you can point to things going in the wrong directions. so i'm not naive and i am not trying to be painting a rose—coloured picture for you. that would not be responsible and it wouldn't be right, but it also would not be right to avoid our eyes from the real progress that is being made.

huge progress was made under the millennium development goal period, of getting more children into primary school. we are continuing to make progress to lift the quality of that education. and then to add on secondary school. gpe can point to countries with whom we work enrolling and having graduate literally millions more children, including millions more girls. this is a problem that is at scale and need to be solved at scale. and so the next part of the journey is to resolve the fact that there are around 260 million kids of primary and lower secondary age who are not in school, as we're having this conversation. and hundreds of millions more getting a very low quality education. that's the problem we're working on now. and most likely, the most disadvantaged of those children are girls. is politics making the world a more dangerous place for women and girls, especially when it comes to education? i don't think you just say politics.

i think that there are some places in the world — nigeria, boko haram, the shooting of malala — you are right about all those examples, where community attitudes and potentially politics — using that the broader label of politics — is making it more difficult for girls. but there are plenty more places in the world where governments are working strongly for development and change, including girls‘ education. and i have had the privilege of travelling in some of those places. rwanda, senegal, you know, all around the world, cambodia and many other examples, where you can literally see the change in front of your eyes. it's notjust in the developing world, though, is it? i mean, if you look at the developed world, advanced societies, we are seeing the shift to the right which is pulling a lot of focus on maternal rights, reproductive rights, and this sort of wave of populism that we are facing today — don't you think that that is impacting women as well?

yes, i do. i think we've just got to be very clear about what problem it is that we are trying to solve. in developing countries, i do think, it starts with educating a girl. the journey of change starts with educating a girl. in our own societies, like australia, actually, when you look at the education statistics now, often in university courses and many other non—university courses, more women are taking them and coming to the completion line and getting their qualifications than men. so the further disadvantage and political debate in those worlds, the gendered part is no longer a function of no access to education, it's about other things. and yes, there is the sort of movement from parts of the political right to view arguments about gender equality as sort of political correctness, irritating, gone too far, but for all of that, there is also a huge wave

of activism and energy for change. just finally on the issue of populism, i mean donald trump comes to mind. what do you think about his attitude to women? clearly, his views about gender equality, his views about women and family planning, we do not have anything in common. i also think, we are analysing the politics of this moment, donald trump in many ways is a symptom of the politics of this moment, not the cause. there is around the world a lot of anger about globalisation, the impacts of the great recession, the global financial crisis, austerity policies, communities feeling left behind, like they're losing their identity, and democratic politics not responding well enough to those agendas so that when the anger comes up, it comes up and it gives

you donald trump and it gives you brexit and it gives you votes for the parties of the hard right in europe, so it is that sense of being left behind that we have got to be thinking about and analysing and working to overcome. you talked about the metoo movement, time's up — and they really are a response to the kinds of things that you are talking about now — but for those people who are sceptical about these movements and sort of say well, women just need to toughen up and they criticise these types of movements as just hash tags, what do you think about that? i don't think you solve problems unless you are talking about them. if they are behind closed doors, in secret, then they never get resolved, and so the good thing about metoo is it is, in an incredible global sense, bringing to the forefront stories of women's real—life experiences in a way which means it is harder to ignore them the way they have been ignored in the past. so if we are going to solve big problems, let's get it out there and talk about them,

and i do think that sexual harassment, sexual assault, because there has been so much secrecy and so much shame, the more women who come out and say "me too", it is never going to be easy but it is more likely that the next woman will come out and say this happened to me and it needs to be resolved. and i think that culture is what is going to get us to a new and better place. you talked about the changes in feminism and gender equality, you have actually said it is in reverse and women should be prepared for a backlash. what did you mean by that? i think we are seeing that this is the complexity of the political moment and really, it is something we learn from history too. every single societal wave that makes change ends up getting every big societal wave that makes change ends up getting some forces in reaction, and i think we are seeing that now and we will probably see it play out a little bit more in the future, but ultimately, the wave of change

becomes irresistible. and so, if you look at the earlier demands of the women's movement, the earlier waves of feminism, demands for equal pay for equal work was apparently going to bankrupt businesses and end economies. now, of course, we look back at that and say how could any rational person have ever argued against that? you know, the demands to change settings that said if you got married, you had to resign yourjob. people said no, if we don't have women resigning when they're marroed, then men aren't going to getjobs, boys aren't going to getjobs. it looks ridiculous to us now. and many of the things that are being said in this moment about the contemporary claims of women, of wanting, you know, equal access to positions of power, the gender pay gap closed, safe workplaces, and being treated always with respect, i think in, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, we're going to look back on this moment and say how could anybody have ever argued against any of that?

i'm just going to read out some stats to you. i mean globally, women make up 23% of national parliamentarians, 26% of news media leaders, 27% ofjudges, 15% of corporate board members, and 9% of senior it leaders around the world. i mean, there are some exceptions, but these numbers are pretty grim. they're pretty grim, and the rate of change is not what one would like to see either. in some areas, you know, women in politics, progress has stalled, rates of change in things like the number of women senior managers, we've seen a 1% increase in a decade. so, you know, there is a lot to do. i think when we look at all of those statistics, we're actually at the stage where we need some new tools to make a difference. in many cases, people have done some of the obvious things to try and encourage more women into these occupations, into politics, now we need to get to the deeper causes that are locking women out and particularly locking them from coming up to the most senior levels, and i'm very pleased to be

spending some of my time and that. you've spoken about social media being used as a tool to bring down women in leadership roles. is that something that you experienced? oh yes, i mean, you know, the evidence here is very clear that women in publicly exposed occupations, whether it's politics, journalists, the nature of their social media feeds, the abuse is much heavier and much harder than... do you still get it? oh, yes, from time to time. obviously, i'm less exposed than i used to be. i think we've got to be very thoughtful about how, as women, we personally respond to this. it worries me that women, you know, engage with social media in such a deep way that it ends up dissuading them from being in the public square, that it actually takes them out of the public square because it's so vile. i do think, you know, you can limit how much you look at and you probably should limit how

much you look at so that it's not buffeting you off track, but it does say something about the sexism and misogyny that lies under the surface that people with the benefit of anonymity will put such disgusting things and often violent things too on social media. but is that something that's out of our control now? i mean, it's something that we sort of have to live with in our daily lives and in leadership roles, so is that something that women just have to deal with? i think frankly, for a period of time, we — women in leadership roles, in publicly exposed roles, will be in that situation. there's no thing that we can just say, you know, click, let's do. i do think there are some things for the major technology companies to think about, about what is allowed to be posted and left there. and over time, i think as we try and push forward on gender equality, the nature of the social media feed will almost be like a temperature take about how much

of a difference have we made? how many hearts and minds have really been changed around gender equality issues? perhaps your most famous moment in politics was when you stood up against your opponent tony abbott and called him out for the misogyny and sexism that you faced in parliament daily. it's had 3 million views or something like that on youtube, it's gone viral. i will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, i will not! and the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. not now, not ever! just once, do you wish you were remembered for doing something else? yes, and i used to, particularly as i travelled, you know, you'd get women who'd rush over to talk to you about that speech and that still happens to me. and there was a period when i was immediately post politics that i would think to myself, you know, i was in the parliament for 15 years, i was deputy prime minister for three years,

i was prime minister for three years. we did some incredibly big things, you know, nation changing things, and apparently it all comes down to one speech. but i'm at peace with it now in the sense that i know that that speech has come to mean a lot to many women, and of the women who, you know, will dive through traffic to talk to me when i'm overseas, often it's the only thing they know about australian politics, sometimes it's one of the few things they know about australia apart from kangaroos and all the rest of it, and so, you've got to end up being quite proud of that. and i have to ask, i mean, is there something about your job that you mist? about your job that you mists? about your job that you miss? oh yeah, there are things that i miss. there's no greater capacity to put your values into action than politics, and that's one of the reasons that i do talk it up to young women and to girls to think about as a career. you get to change things you care about, and so yeah, i miss that.

i miss the sense of common cause with the best of my colleagues, it's a very bonding experience with the people around you, you make great friendships in politics, and so i miss the intensity in some ways of that environment. but i don't miss the sheer relentlessness of it, and with all due respect, i don't miss the media intrusion, and i do feel like i'm getting on with some big challenges, global partnership for education, educating girls, the global institute for women's leadership at kings college, because if we can educate girls, i want to see them come through to the top in all levels of life, and of course, back home in australia, i'm very pleased to be making a contribution on the debate and discussion on service innovation we need around mental health through chairing beyond blue. prime minister gillard, thank you for your time. thank you very much. there's not much to report on the

weather front, we have there's not much to report on the weatherfront, we have had such there's not much to report on the weather front, we have had such a quiet christmas this year, no storms 01’ quiet christmas this year, no storms or rain or gales, the kind of forecast we almost run out of things to say, just a bit of cloud here and there and a touch of frost but that's a good thing. right now there's a bit of cloud swinging out of the south west on the atlantic wind, winds or out of the south west hence the mild air especially in the south west and if you look at that

wind moving across the uk in two parts of scandinavia and central europe where it's starting to turn a little milder after the cold they had at the start of christmas. this afternoon across the uk, 8 or 9 degrees, some clearing skies after that sunshine that some of us had been lucky enough to get today but clearing skies in the south and in one 01’ clearing skies in the south and in one or two other spots the temperature will dip tonight, towns and cities they maybe three or 4 degrees but in rural spots, the new forest, temperatures may dip down 2-1d. forest, temperatures may dip down 2—1d. tomorrow some sunshine in scotland, clearer skies for the north—east of england and the sun will pop out, temperatures similar to what we had in the last few days so to what we had in the last few days so between eight and 11 degrees,

northern ireland's other warm spot. early friday morning there may be a bit of rain moving across the north so bit of rain moving across the north so that means in belfast, glasgow and edinburgh, you may geta bit so that means in belfast, glasgow and edinburgh, you may get a bit of rain but it should be out of the way very quickly and then a fairly bright day and in the south it stays similar, some sunshine here and there and at times a lot of cloud. 9 01’ there and at times a lot of cloud. 9 or10 there and at times a lot of cloud. 9 or 10 degrees for most of us, so that's what the week ahead looks like. into the weekend, one or two spots of rain possible, in belfast 11 degrees, it seems to be the numberfor use, 11 degrees, it seems to be the number for use, ten on 11 degrees, it seems to be the numberfor use, ten on sunday, then as we head into the new year, high pressure builds across the uk, the winds will be liked and it looks mostly dry. this is bbc news.

i'm shaun ley. the headlines at apm. japan is to restart commercial whale hunting next summer — in defiance of a global ban. campaigners say they‘ re worried by the decision. because ifjapan, if you like, gets away with this, other countries may want to try and do the same thing and then more and more populations will be exposed to whaling. queues for the boxing day sales but the number of people on the high street today has fallen — for the third year in a row. dozens of people are injured after a powerful earthquake hits around europe's most active volcano, mount etna on sicily. sister wendy beckett — the nun who became famous around the world as a art historian, has died at the age of 88. i will be looking back at a turbulent and fractures year in