after a campaign marred by violence. over 100 million voters will decide whether the prime minister, sheikh hasina, secures a third consecutive term. for the seventh weekend in a row, france's so—called ‘gilets jaunes‘ movement for better living standards, has brought protesters onto the streets. across the country, roads were blocked, and barricades were set alight, as some marches became violent. organisers blame the festive season for a slight drop in numbers. the uk government has insisted it's working very effectively with france, to tackle an increase in the number of migrants crossing the channel in small boats. more than 200 people have arrived since the start of november. local politicians have called for more coast guard, boat patrols. it has been revealed that hundreds

of millions of pounds have been spent chartering ferries in the event of a no deal breaks of. they we re event of a no deal breaks of. they were chartered to ease congestion at dover and allow more lorries through other ports. here is our business correspondentjoe miller. it might not look like much right now but if the uk leads the eu in march without an agreement, and though that turns into a parking lot, the sport will play a vital role in getting emergency medicine to british shores. in the run—up to christmas the department of transport quietly awarded three shipping groups lucrative contracts to provide up to half a million tons a month of additional for a capacity. the french firm britain if ferries and danish company dfes but the bulk of the money, with deals worth around £47 million each, while a small british start—up got £i4 million. five uk ports, including plymouth, pool and felixstowe will then that from additional traffic,

as will portsmouth. —— will benefit. in offering this safety net we will be providing the essential goods and services that people in the uk rely on, so it is very good news to us but i think it is also good news for the uk. this is the no deal contingency plan, predominantly french and danish vessels making dozens french and danish vessels making d oze ns of french and danish vessels making dozens of additional trips across the channel each week and taking thousands of lorries with them. but the shipping industry is already saying that extra capacity along the english coast won't help solve the problem of delays to critical goods because of new customs checks. anti—brexit campaigners say public money is being wasted on an entirely preve nta ble money is being wasted on an entirely preventable scenario. the whole point of brexit is supposed to be to bring back control to britain. and then we have an imaginary national emergency and the government has got to turn to european companies to sort out their problems for them. the department for transport says it

has other no deal preparations in the offing. it is that the government hopes the day it needs to use them never arises. now on bbc news it's time for witness, and a special edition looking back at some of most compelling stories of 2018, from the great niece of the tsar reflecting on the russian revolution, to the doctor who saved bulgaria's dancing bears. hello and welcome to witness with me, razia iqbal. i'm here at the british library with five extraordinary moments in history, told to us by people who were there. in this special edition, we present five stories from 2018. we will hear about how a us warship shot down an iranian airliner in 1988. the tragedy that wiped out

the australian town of wittenoom. the man who rescued the dancing bears of bulgaria. and chairman mao attempts to bring healthcare to the masses with barefoot doctors. but first, we head back 100 years to 1918 when the russian tsar, nicholas ii, and his entire family were murdered by russian revolutionaries. in 1998, after the fall of communism, their remains were unearthed and they were reburied in st petersburg. princess 0lga romanoff, the great—niece of the tsar, tells the story. following the priests and the nobles, tsar nicholas of imperial russia, with his wife and children. one day, all to find death in a bullet swept cellar. my grandmother was tsar nicholas ii's sister, and my father was tsar nicholas

ii's eldest nephew. he called him "uncle nicky". nicholas adored him and he travelled a lot with the tsarina and with the tsar, and was very close with the girls. they used to have cycle races and pony races up and down the palaces. the russian territories are vast and they were incredibly powerful. also, nicholas was the head of the church. already, there were bolshevik movements, and the russian royal family were not as powerful as they were say in 1900. 0n march15, 1917, tsar nicholas ii, supreme ruler of all the russias, was forced to abdicate in the face of political and economic pressure, that lead in the end to total revolution. nicholas and his family were taken to tobolsk, where they were held, and from tobolsk, they went to ekaterinburg, which is where they were eventually murdered. i think that the bolsheviks feared that if he was on the throne, he might have more influence than they would like him to have. his memory is honoured here, but during his lifetime, the tsar was accused of being both weak and inconsistent, stubbornly clinging to power.

but the romanoffs are credited with dignity in the months leading to their execution. the children, their brother, along with the emperor, nicholas himself, were all shot. after the fall of the soviet union, we heard on the grapevine that the bodies of nicholas and his family had been discovered in a swamp outside of ekaterinburg, and there was a movement that they would get a decent burial in st petersburg, with the rest of the family. in 98, injuly, one of my sons and myself went st petersburg for the first time for the funeral of nicholas ii, and between 52 and 56 romanoffs. as the cortege approaches, it slows down, in keeping

with the russian tradition in which the coffins of the dead are driven past the place that was their last home on earth. we followed the cortege all the way from the airport to peter and paul fortress, and what struck me, amazingly, there were so many people in the street, and all of them were sliding across and crying... the queen had very kindly sent officers from the scots. the honour guard including a royal piper from the royal scots dragoon guards, tsar nicholas was their commander—in—chief. it was a very long service, they all laid out in front of the altar and it all felt very emotional. it had a feel of holiness and sanctity. it was, you know, it wasjust nice to have them safely buried. princess 0lga romanoff

on burying her great uncle, the last tsar of russia. in 1988, an american warship, the uss vincennes, shot down an iranian airliner, killing all 290 people on board. at the time, rudy pahoyo was a navy combat cameraman, and happened to be on board the vincennes that fateful day. it was a tragedy, to shoot down an airliner. one of those things you just — i am still in disbelief that it could have happened. the mood in the gulf was very tense, iran and iraq were in the middle of a war at the time and the us navy was protecting the oil tankers that came out of kuwait, to make sure the flow of oil kept coming to the united states, and the iranians were harassing those ships. the speedboats that the iranians were using, they would round—robin

the ships while they were shooting and try to catch fire. so ourjob was just kind of like a police force, if you will. the team i was with was my crew, i am videotaping the whole time. and i caught a ride with the uss vincennes cruiser, it is a billion—dollar boat, state—of—the—art at the time. as we were sailing back, we got into a battle with iranian speedboats. during the gunboat battle, we were thinking that they are going to come at us with whatever they have now, that would have been the air force.

the year before, in 1987, the uss stark got hit by a missile, that was launched by iraq, we always had in mind remember the stark, remember the stark. and about five minutes went by and they said there was a target that had left bandar abbas, the iranian airfield, and the military airport and the civilian airport is the same place, so the aircraft, when it took off, was identified as air hostile. they thought it was iranian air force but the plane, in reality, was flight 655, it was an airliner, an airbus. five times a week, there is a scheduled service across the bandar strait to dubai. they travel a flight path... but here the crew is, waiting for another target to come

at them when the aircraft takes off. and i believe that one of the lieutenants, i went up and asked him and i said "what are we doing?" he said "you are going to see some missile action." and i went to the specialist who was watching the scope and he is watching the missiles, because you can track them off the radar, and then he sees it hit the target. but they found out like 15, 20 minutes later, that it was an airliner. an iranian airbus is presumed crashed. please look for survivors or aircraft wreckage. and so that is when it was like what? airliner missing? we didn't shoot an airliner, we shot a tomcat, i thought.

there was a lot of soul—searching, disbelief. that's not supposed to happen, that's not what we're here to do. 290 civilians passed away on flight 655, and of those 290, 66 were children. i felt so bad for the families that lost their loved ones, and sometimes you are part of history and you love it, sometimes you're part of history and you hate it. this is just one of those things where you just wish it didn't happen, but i was there. rudy pahoyo remembering the iranian airliner tragedy. our next story takes us to the balkans. in 1988, bulgaria banned the centuries old form of local entertainment, where captive, chained bears were forced to dance to music. following the ban, the retired and often traumatised bears needed a place to go and one man, dr amir khalil, came to their rescue. in 1998, it was clear

from the announcement that the brown bear needed to be protected. for me, it was a huge challenge. in the heart of the bulgarian capital sofia's commercial and political centre, a tradition from mediaeval times. a 14—month—old brown bear. she is muzzled and chained by rings through her nose and upper lip to her master. the dancing bear was a cultural problem in bulgaria. for hundreds of years, a tradition. the bear is trained, they take the bear cub and work them on a metal hotplate, very hot, like fire. they smear the soul of the leg of the bear with vaseline and then they start to play with small

instruments and music and they put the bear up on the fire, on this hotplate and the bear starts to move his leg up and down because it's burning him. and they do this procedure many times and for the bear, when they hear this music, they start to move their leg and this is how they have the dancing bear. the bear is also alcoholic. they have one hobby. so that they are working many hours, the bear has to drink also alcohol, like its owner. so we tried to work with the public and make a lot of publicity about the situation and soon enough, aftera month, a lot of hotel owners in sofia on the seaside, they refused the owner of the bear to come to dance in front of his hotel. this bear was born in captivity and don't have the chance to learn how to survive in the wild so we can't let them to the wild. it was very clear there needs to be a sanctuary. for me, it was a huge challenge.

like really, how to get the first bears and convince and prove that this project is possible? this is a retirement house for older dancing bears. the first time, when i have the chance to bring the bears here, to the dancing bear park, first i was very excited. we have to wait all the night outside till the morning coming so i have to dart the bear to remove the chain and bring the bear inside the enclosure. to be honest, i was very scared because i don't know how the bear will react. they will wake up, they are chained, what will they do? he is a wild animal still and i was scared and think the bear also scared so when he woke up, i will never forget this moment. he stands up, he was looking that he was afraid to walk, even to walk, he was afraid to step in front because he was just chained and his smell, he just smiled. there is no chain, no owner, just food.

he is free. in bulgaria, there is no more dancing bear. the last dancing bear in bulgaria was rescued in september 2007. it is a tradition from the middle ages. it no more exists and it will never come back again. dr amil khalil on rescuing dancing bears. remember, you can watch with us every month on the bbc news channel or you can catch up on all our films along with more than 1,000 radio programmes in the online archive. just go to: our next story is about an australian tragedy. the town of wittenoom in western australia grew around an asbestos mine in the 1940s

but at the time, few people knew that asbestos was lethal and could cause lung cancer. bronwyn duke lived in wittenoom as a child and is one of the few members of her family that is still alive. people were warned but they didn't take it seriously until people started to die. i lost both parents, both grandparents, my brother, three uncles, about four cousins that i can think of and that's just the immediate family in my world. i was born in 1958 in the far north of western australia, in the pilbara, the little town of wittenoom. the blue asbestos mine was the genesis of the time. —— of the town. asbestos is a naturalfibre that is encased in rocks. they would have extracted

the asbestos out of the mine and the mill would package ready for shipment, and it was sent to all places around the world. voiceover: fire-resistant fabric known as asbestos is a piece of rock. the practical uses of asbestos are very numerous. at least 18,000 articles are made of it. packing the steam engines and friction services. to bulk heads for aeroplanes. there were a lot of immigrants who came to australia after the second world war. and a lot of them were looking forjobs, and there were jobs to be had in wittenoom. my dad was one of them. he was a jack of all trades. he took the guys from town to the mine every day. my mum and her sisters all met their husbands up there. it had all of the elements of a normal country town —

they used to have race days, there would be balls and all sorts of social activities that everyone was involved in. my parents weren't aware of the dangers at all. i don't think a lot of the people in the town were aware. asbestos fibres get into the lungs and those fibres can cause asbestosis, or mesothelioma. it encases the lung in cancer and prevents you from breathing. in wittenoom, the asbestos wasn't confined to the mine. asbestos was used in gardens, on driveways and on the roads. it was literally everywhere and if you went out to play, as all small children do, you were playing in asbestos. one of the flying doctors flew into town and said, as soon as he got there, he said, we have to close this,

this has to stop. the mine was very profitable, so it was decided that wasn't the case. it was 1966 before they closed the mine. but people had started to die. we left when my dad got sick. we now know in actual fact he had asbestosis at that time. it's almost like having an asthma attack where you can't breathe and you're fighting to catch your breath. my mum and my brother died from mesothelioma. it is an extremely harrowing disease to see someone dying from mesothelioma. there's just hundreds of people from wittenoom that i know of that have gone with mesothelioma or asbestosis. none of my family in that photo is alive, they're all gone, every one of them. there is no compensation for taking away your parents or your family. there's no justice in that at all. nothing. money doesn't bring them back. money doesn't compensate

for their death or what you miss. bronwyn duke on the wittenoom asbestos mine in australia. now, in 1968, chairman mao launched a scheme to improve healthcare in rural china by giving thousands of people basic medical training and sending them out to work in villages. they were known as the barefoot doctors. gordon liu was one of them. i became a barefoot doctor after i graduated from high school simply because i was one of the most educated young persons. i had no training, no experience or knowledge in medicine whatsoever. voiceover: chairman mao says the sick must be healed and has caused a real shake—up in china's health services. voiceover: every commune, they say,

now has hospitals and clinics providing medical attention where there was none before. perhaps the most striking development has been the training of a vast corps of a barefoot doctors. they have their farm work to do as well, and their training is limited but even if you can teach people simple hygiene, it saves countless lives. we provided very basic services to our villages, mostly for the common cold conditions, infections, diarrhoea, things like that. barefoot doctor simply described that sometimes we had to take shoes off to work in farmland. we were not always barefoot. i do have shoes! i started as a barefoot doctor to not only treat the people but also treat animals. there was one case i still remember. one of my relatives, she had a teeth problem, she had to go to the county hospital and she returned to the village and it was very painful. she said, "my little brother, can you do something for me?"

i said, "i will give it a try." i went back to the chinese medicine books i had, i read the relevant chapters for dental care and i said, "can we try this?" after three or four days, the problem was gone. that news was out to the whole village. this little kid can do something much better than the county hospital, so i was very, very proud of it. big epidemics have been largely checked. this doctor said, "the only venereal disease cases we get in china now are those that come over the border from hong kong. in china, we stamped it out." certainly, cholera and smallpox claim fewer victims than in the old days. i think most people in china

and many people in other countries perceived the barefoot doctor system very highly. my view is somewhat different from that. back in the ‘60s, ‘70s, the result of the cultural revolution, the chinese higher education system was shut down, but if i could choose between going to the countryside for three years or going to college, mostly i would have chosen college but given that was the only choice available to me but yes, there was something positive there. gordon liu, one of china's barefoot doctors. that is all from witness this month

at the british library. we will be back next month with more first—hand accounts of extraordinary moments in history but now, from me and the rest of the witness team, goodbye. hello. we've had some fairly quiet weather over recent days, with high pressure mostly in charge. has been a little bit wet and windy across some northern parts of the uk, but this picture was taken on saturday afternoon by one of our weather watchers in sterling. and i think as we head through the next couple of days, the last few days of 2018, that mostly dry theme will continue. fairly cloudy, certainly mild. there will be a bit of rain,

mostly across the northern half of the uk, particularly for parts of scotland over the next few days. we've got a weather front which is just pushing its way west to east across parts of scotland and england at the moment, but it's high pressure that is largely dominating the weather. a fairly chilly start to sunday morning, especially across some southern and eastern parts where we have the clearer skies for longest overnight. so we start with a lot of cloud, some drizzly outbreaks of rain, particularly in the north and the east. now, most of that rain will clear. it'll linger longest for the northern isles. best of the sunshine, then, will be for eastern scotland and eastern england too. further west, thicker cloud is likely to bring a little bit of drizzle, perhaps some low cloud and mist over the hills in the west, too. but temperatures 10—12 degrees — still reasonably mild for this time of year. and then we keep with that reasonably mild and largely dry theme through the course of sunday evening, and overnight too. still a bit of light rain and patchy drizzle for some northern and western parts. clearer skies for a time towards the east. so i think monday morning, this is the dawn on new year's eve,

we should see largely frost—free conditions, but perhaps some fairly chilly weather first thing across some eastern areas with those clearer spells. now, looking through the day on new year's eve, monday, high pressure well and truly in the driving seat. we have got weather fronts to the far north—west and tighter isobars here. so breezier conditions, certainly, for northern and western scotland, with a bit of patchy rain too. but for much of the uk, new year's eve monday is looking pretty much the same as the last few days — largely dry, fair amount of cloud, and the best of any sunny spells will be for eastern counties of england and eastern scotland. temperatures around ten or 11 degrees for new year's eve on monday. if you've got plans to see in the new year overnight new year's eve night, most of us should stay dry. fairly cloudy conditions, but there could be a spot or two of rain, particularly across part of scotland, perhaps northern ireland too. so that's all courtesy of this fairly weak weather front which is just slowly slipping south as we head into new year's day but for most of us, high pressure

still in charge of the weather. so a largely dry, still mild picture on new year's day, but then things are turning colder, a little more wintry, as we look ahead into the first week of 2019. bye— bye. good morning. welcome to breakfast with naga munchetty and rachel burden. 0ur headlines today: the home secretary cuts short his holiday amid calls for tougher action to cut the number of migrants crossing the channel. inside of me, there is a thin person just screaming to get out. just the one, dear? a "sensational talent", funny and generous. the acting world pays tribute to dame june whitfield, who's died at the age of 93. voters go to the polls in bangladesh — following an election campaign plagued by violence and complaints of intimidation. liverpool extend their lead at the top of the premier league to nine points after thrashing arsenal 5—1.